Gadgetory

if you've been on the Internet in the last couple of months especially if you've been looking up news about the Nexus 6 or Android 5.0 lollipop then you may have encountered the term material design and found yourself wondering what the devil does that even mean in a nutshell it's new visual and interactive design concept from Google that contrary to how you might initially interpret it has nothing to do with this and isn't really what I thought it would be either I thought it would be like some kind of philosophy where everything needed to look like a real-world material like titanium and trees no it's not that at all instead material is more like this hypothetical material render out of which all the UI elements buttons icons and themes are constructed and constructed is key here because material and I'm going to keep finger quilting that must behave according to a number of guidelines set out in Google's material design spec sheet a living document that was created to guide artists to make a more unified look for lollipop and presumably other Google products in the future all right then Linus so what are these guidelines you say well first much like construction paper material can come in many different shapes when you look at it head-on but while it's almost flat it is solid so it does have a little bit of depth to it all material is exactly 1 DP thick even when content is displayed on top of it which is not the same as 1 pixel thick by the way to allow for consistent appearance on high and low resolution displays now because material has that depth some more rules apply while it can change shape grow shrink and be moved and rotated along any axis it's solid so you can't click or see through it two pieces can't occupy the same space at the same time the same way that my hands can occupy the same space at the same time one must be above the other and it can't pass through other material it also can't bend or fold alright Linus's is starting to sound like a bunch of arbitrary hipster design crab to me why does any of this matter well believe it or not design philosophies like this matter more than you'd think because material design extends much further they just rules for what a play outs and buttons look like it's a whole set of guidelines for how we interact with our devices including things like realistic movement animations which combined with other techniques for drawing the users eye to the correct part of the screen enables more natural interaction there are also color suggestions so every app on your phone or tablet can have its own unique visual identity yet be part of a greater whole and even advice for developers about how to make sure their product is accessible for users with disabilities so while I unfortunately cannot stand here and go into as much depth as I could on a topic like this I hope it was enough to explain the importance of material design as a toolkit for app developers to help make the Android ecosystem feel well like just that more of an ecosystem as opposed to an eclectic collection of random functionalities all bolted together and then stuck into your pocket speaking of an eclectic collection lynda.com is the sponsor of today's episode they have thousands of online courses available in a wide variety of subjects from business to photography to music production to development a quick search for material design unfortunately didn't come up with anything today but as it becomes more of a standard I'm sure they will add some great instructional content about it or even integrate it into some of their other courses because their library grows with new courses every week and every course is taught by an industry expert so you can rest assured that you're not just listening to some actor read from a script these are people from the field with real up-to-date knowledge unlike that tech quickie guy hey who put that in there now I'm just kidding guys plans start at a very reasonable twenty-five dollars per month but if you use our link in the video description to sign up that's lynda.com slash tech quickie you will get a free 7-day trial to test out their service and see just how much you could benefit from it before you pull the trigger so head over to lynda.com today and figure out what you want to learn thank you for watching this video like it if you liked it dislike it if you disliked it leave a comment letting me know if your feelings were more complicated than this or if you have suggestions for future fast as possible episodes we really do read them thanks again for watching it as always don't forget to subscribe