The addition of new gesture navigation is one of Android Q’s biggest upgrades. To summarise, users can now use gestures rather than buttons to move back (left/right edge swipe), to the home screen (swipe up from the bottom).
We may give apps access to more of the screen to offer a more immersive experience by switching to a gesture model for system navigation.
We wanted to provide readers a behind-the-scenes peek at our thinking, our strategy, and some of the trade-offs we made in tackling this challenge. There will be some nerding out on gesture design, but perhaps it will give you a better understanding of how we work.
Why do gestures?
The ability for app developers and Android partners to test out novel, cutting-edge strategies on the phone is one of the truly remarkable features of Android.
Though gestures have been around since 2009, gesture navigation patterns have become increasingly common on mobile devices in the previous three years.
Innovative Android partners and Android apps testing out some really fascinating ideas were at the forefront of this trend (for example: Fluid NG, XDA).
We focused on the user benefits when we did more study on this:
- Using gestures to manage your phone can be quicker, more natural, and more ergonomic.
- Compared to software buttons that you might activate by simply grabbing your phone, gestures are more deliberate.
- Gestures reduce the amount of system drawing over app content, such as HOME/BACK buttons and the bar they sit on, allowing for a more immersive experience for apps, especially as hardware advances toward larger displays and thinner bezel
However, not everything went smoothly; we had problems with a number of the gesture modes.
- Every user is not able to use gestures
- Gestures can be challenging to learn and require some getting used to.
- Gestures can obstruct an app’s navigational flow.
The fact that different Android phones had distinct gestures. Especially for Android developers, brought to light a bigger problem of fragmentation.
To standardise gesture navigation moving ahead, we collaborated with partners including Samsung, Xiaomi, HMD Global, OPPO, OnePlus, LG, Motorola, and many more over the past year. The Android Q gestures will serve as the standard gesture navigation for new Q+ devices in order to guarantee a consistent user and developer experience.
Three-button navigation will remain an option on all Android devices since we recognise that these gestures may not be suitable for all users, particularly those with less dexterity and mobility.
So why are they doing this?
In order to understand how people handled their phones. What a normal reach looked like, and which portions of the phone they used the most, we first conducted research. From there, we constructed numerous prototypes and tested them on a variety of axes, including desirability, usability, ergonomics, and others. We also conducted a number of studies on our final design to determine how quickly consumers picked up on it. How quickly they became accustomed to it, and how they felt about it.
The Back button has been a distinctive feature of Android navigation since the beginning. Despite numerous arguments over what constitutes “proper” behaviour. It is valued by many users who find Android to be simpler to use and learn — and it is widely utilised! Actually, 50% more than even Home. We therefore prioritised this goal over other less common navigation, such as drawers and recents, and one of our design goals was to ensure that the back gesture was ergonomic, dependable, and intuitive.
Using the reachability graphs below as a guide. We created the Back and Home motions to correspond with the thumbs’ most comfortable and reachable locations.
Users completed tasks involving Home and Back on average more quickly than they did with buttons, and even quicker than they did with most other models. However, the approach did come at the expense of being able to reach Overview/Recent apps fast, which people go to less frequently than the Home screen.
Users perceived the Q model as being more one-handed and reachable from a more qualitative standpoint. Even if buttons were still seen as more ergonomic by more users.
Other App Swipes and App Drawers
Although we ultimately decided that the side swipe was the back gesture that best balanced a number of compromises. It is important to note that there were difficult choices, especially in regards to how that gesture would affect apps.
For instance, we discovered that only 3–7% of users (depending on the Google app) swipe to activate. The App Navigation Drawer; the remaining users had to press the hamburger menu. Since the back button now dominates the drawer swipe gesture. Some users will need to get used to using the hamburger menu. Although it was a difficult decision, we optimised for what performed best there given the widespread use of back.
We attempted a number of approaches to help users differentiate between the drawer motion and the back gesture because it is never our intention to influence their behaviour. However, all of these routes resulted in users losing faith in the Back button and pulling in the drawer when attempting to go back.
Beyond drawers, gestures are a significant change for individuals, and it often takes 1-3 days for them to get used to them. Users had trouble getting used to actions like swiping right or left on a carousel and pressing the Back button.
According to qualitative research, users were able to reliably discern between these two movements following a 1-3 day break-in time.
How Does This Affect Developers?
We want to advance and standardise the Android user experience with gesture navigation. The paradigm we chose is the best one for the majority of users. However some of the gestures conflict with those used by already-existing apps. Mandating developer changes to how users interact with your apps. We wish to assist you in this process and take seriously our obligation to Android developers.
Support for gesture navigation involves these three essential steps:
- To allow your app to draw across the entire screen, move to the edge.
- Any visual overlapping with the system user interface should be handled (i.e. navigation bar)
- Any gesture conflicts with the system gestures should be resolved.
We appreciate all of your feedback, which has enabled us to enhance. The gesture navigation experience in Android Q and, more generally, make Android better every day.
