Desarrollo de Aplicaciones para Dispositivos Mviles

27/Enero/2015
Cesreo Hernndez Alfaro
26 NOVEMBER 2012

Designing for Tablets? Were Here to Help!

Posted by Roman Nurik, who often writes about Android design-related topics on Google+
So youve got a great Android phone app on Google Play, your users love it, and youre kicking back and
watching the download numbers soar. Congrats! But like any enterprising developer, you may be thinking,
how do I take my apps success even further? The answer: an equally awesome experience on tablets. Users
love their tablet apps! For example, Mint.com found that the larger screen real estate allowed tablet users to
engage with their budget data 7x more than on phones. And TinyCo found that on average, paying users spent
35% more on tablets than on handsets. So now is the right time to think about how your app translates onto
these larger screen devices that are designed to meet users more generic, everyday computing needs.
In this post, well recap some of the resources available for crafting a great tablet experience for your users.
These resources are useful for everyone in the app development pipelinefrom product managers, to
designers, to developers, and QA engineers.

Android Design Guidelines

No conversation about Android app design or development should go very far without first consulting
the Android Design guidelines. While most of the sections are relevant to all Android devices, certain sections
stand out as particularly relevant to design on tablets.

The Devices and Displays page introduces the concept of density-independence. For example, although the
Nexus 4, Nexus 7, and Motorola XOOM all have a similar pixel resolution (1280x768, 1280x800, and
1280x800 respectively), they have vastly different screens. Instead of thinking in pixels, think in dips
(density-independent pixels)that way, its much easier to conceptualize the difference between Nexus 4
(640x384 dp), Nexus 7 (960x600dp), and Nexus 10 or the Motorola XOOM (1280x800 dp).
Following the 48dp rhythm discussed in Metrics and Grids helps take some of the guesswork out of sizing
elements, especially for tablets. When in doubt, use multiples of 48dp (or 16dp for a finer grid) for sizing
elements horizontally and vertically. For example, when showing sparse content on larger screens, consider
using generous side margins of 96dp or 144dp. Or when deciding how wide your master pane should be in a
master/detail layout for 10 tablets, see how your master content looks and feels with a width of 240dp or
288dp.

Desarrollo de Aplicaciones para Dispositivos Mviles

27/Enero/2015
Cesreo Hernndez Alfaro

The Multi-pane Layouts guide discusses use cases and examples for combining related views into a single
screen to simultaneously improve app navigation and make optimal use of the available screen real estate. It
also discusses strategies for laying out content across both portrait and landscape, all while maintaining
functional parity across orientations. Since users enjoy using tablets in both portrait and landscape
orientations, its even more important to react properly to orientation changes than with phones.
Lastly, the Downloadable Stencils offer designers a great starting point for high-fidelity mockups, complete
with reference device outlines, correctly sized action bars, and more.

Android Training for Developers

The Training section of the developer site offers task-oriented technical training material, complete with flow
diagrams, code snippets, sample projects and more. Several of these classes are geared toward helping
developers understand how to scale your apps across any screen size.

The Designing Effective Navigation classaimed more at the initial design phase of the app creation
processoffers a methodology for effectively planning and grouping screens on tablets, and even
showsexample wireframes for a simple news reader application following this methodology.
The classes Building a Dynamic UI with Fragments and Designing for Multiple Screens demonstrate how to
use fragments in conjunction with Androids resources framework. They show how to easily choose between
tablet and handset layouts at runtime while maximizing code reuse and minimizing your application size
using resource aliases. They also demonstrate techniques for adapting UI flows based on the current layout.

Desarrollo de Aplicaciones para Dispositivos Mviles

27/Enero/2015
Cesreo Hernndez Alfaro

Lastly, while not precisely a training class, the Supporting Tablets and Handsets document offers even more
information about some of these key best practices. And if youre the type of developer that would prefer to
skip the text and jump right into the code, you can even add a Master/Detail flow, complete with handset and
tablet support, to your app with just a few clicks using the Android Developer Tools for Eclipse.

Android Design in Action Highlights

Each week, a few of us on the developer relations team get together on the Android Design in Action live
show to discuss Android design best practices, as well as provide original redesign mockups to help
demonstrate our vision of how Android apps should look and feel.

http://android-developers.blogspot.mx/2012/11/designing-for-tablets-were-here-to-help.html