Google a designer, for the next generation?

About a week ago, Google launched and showed everyone attending their conference a new design technique using a 'material' for mobile application UI's. Along with it, came a web design editor. This comming from Google, these things could be expected but is it really worth a blog post from me? Of course it is. Some of the things they are bringing up is in some ways more impressive than Apple's guidelines for apps on iOS.

So what really made me go wow when reading the design description? The fact they had almost completely solved a major issue in designing applications. How do you relate something you cannot touch, to something that you can in mobile application development.
But thats the thing, they are so different mediums that doing so means changing how you think of one of them completely. In some ways Google did. They made me change the way I view developing GUI toolkits. I've personally be stuck in the idea of, a control is a control. It has meaning only by what the developer puts on it, for the user to use. But here is the thing, that isn't the case. What Google has said is every control has a relationship to others, not by its layout but by how it acts. This is ground breaking stuff. Its not random in the way it acts either. Its well defined.

At this point I should have a disclaimer. I was not paid by Google nor asked by them to write this blog post. I genuinely believe in this.

Okay now lets break down my view of all of this. Too much essay, not enough report structure!

Web designer

This is probably the less emphasized project of the two that Google is really touching on, on their design page. Their web designer here only has one page and really could use a little bit more than just that.

Of course the first thing I did when I saw it was to go download and install it. Sure its still in BETA but who cares? It was good to have a try at.

My initial reactions comes down to this:

• Easy to use, once got your bearings of what is there
• WHERE THE, IS THE FOLDER BROWSER
• Ooo cool time line and tag indentation viewer
• Ugh how do I had tags? Oh wait there is a tool for that..
• Ugg SSI? So not gonna be part of this

It was mostly positive feature wise once you understood the different ways they were doing it. Not even dreamweaver did things like this. They are unique. And I have used everything from Pagemill, FrontPage and Dreamweaver. Even Microsoft's newest designing tool. But I have never seen things done like this. Its practical. If you're working in the design view you don't care about tags so much, just how do they display? Not how do they do it. But if you are in the code view, you do care how it does it. Not so much what it does.

The biggest gripe with it for me at least, is folder browser. Yes I need this. Don't question it. Sorry a bunch of tabs and an open file dialog just doesn't cut it. I love those features, but when I'm looking at code view, most of the time I'll need other files. Easy access to them is a must.

Now server side includes, this is a lesser worry for me, but how can I integrate PHP in it or use a templating language like Diet or Jade with it? At the moment I can't. And this is a massive target for web design, to be used using template languages. So in a way, I don't like that I can't extend it and add my own language support. Or embed it into other windows so that I can have it controlling just html/css/js.

I really hope Google gets the act together with those two enhancements. Maybe even opensource it, because honestly? I love it. I would use it. I would actually use it independently of an IDE if it would allow me to use templated languages in place of HTML5/xml syntax.

Design

This is so much tougher to talk about then just say they did x. What does x actually mean in the grand scheme of things? Thats a lot tougher nut to crack.

Components

Heres the thing about their components. They barely describe them. This will probably be improved, but in large they describe techniques and how to apply them. Not a button must have a pixel here and here with a specific colour, no. While for a GUI toolkit developer that might be important. But by large they have shown examples of these components. This is actually really useful in that context. Because it does show where pixels must be and with what colour. As you see it being put in different situations, you see how they change as well.

Colour

This to me is one of the major parts to the specification that they have given us. There is some user choices, but after the designer has chosen the primary, asscent (secondary) colors, which the choices have been limited to around the mid range (500).

You can see them at link.

What really makes me go wow about this though? With some colour combination storage and tricks, it would be possible to detect conflicts and apply the rules specified by specification. Not to mention one place it would actually store the colours to use. Would be amazing. But in saying this, overriding might be a good idea to support.

Font

The standard font used, has even been defined. Rules for its spacing between lines even kerning has also been defined. Now this is cool and all, but I could go choose any I want really and say 'thats the standard'.

But they have done a bit more then just that. They have also defined colours for different elements, sizes with names and purpose.

This to me signals a strong attitude for giving us a direction, a purpose even on how to do it. Although saying this, this definitely isn't one of the most important parts of this whole thing.

Images

For icons they have given us an actual set we should use. They have described their design, to the pixel. Given the rules on how to make more at just as high of quality.

But it doesn't compare against the way they have described images oh no. They have given images purpose. Not just act as a telling way to describe something instead of text. But as a way to provide feedback as things happens.

Going forward

Now for me, why has this had such a massive impact? Because for me, both of these things are innovative. They show me just how much of a box I live in and even when I don't, just how much it still is in a box. Think big, why do we do things? Why? Lets rethink things. Lets rebuild entirely new GUI toolkits that take these things into account.

I think going forward I would love to have a go at developing this design into a PC based GUI toolkit, because honestly to me its just truely amazing. Its worth the time and effort to use and develop.

We could quite literally change everything, after all if we interact enough with something it'll eventually change us.

Recap

I'm not personally the type to fan boy of corporate entity actions but one thing is clear, Google has done an impressive job on designing their new 'material' and how it is to be used on mobile platforms. This to me is the future. Nothing Apple has done to date shows such strength, definition and most importantly openness. Anybody can use these design techniques. Adapt them for their usage. It's just the next design choice.