What is #MaterialDesign ?

I tried to learn a bit about Google's #MaterialDesign this evening following some criticism of my first icon design for my next app SiteSnaps.

So what is Material Design? Don't ask me! I spent an hour reading about it on Google's documentation pages and I still don't get it. I mean does this mean anything to anyone?

...The use of familiar tactile attributes helps users quickly understand affordances. Yet the flexibility of the material creates new affordances that supercede those in the physical world, without breaking the rules of physics...

Well not to me.

So I have some issues with Material Design.

Firstly as highlighted above, it seems like Material Design is the invention of a new language. I think this language is designed to monopolise the vocabulary around and as a result the approach to graphic design - Soon everything will look like it was made by Google.

Secondly, Google is trying to make us conform to a narrow design envelope. Where's the freedom and space for creativity? If all app designers use the fixed colour palettes and strict rules provided by Material Design, things will become quite predictable and boring.

Thirdly, who's judgement of good design are we trusting? There are a whole selection of Do's and Don'ts. Some of the Don't actually look OK to me.

And another (I quite like the off-center folds):

Finally, There's #contradiction. Material Design says in a number of web pages:

 A folder corner, or dog-ear, is used with forms associated with documents or traditional paper-based metaphors...Don’t use a dog-ear treatment in the upper-left of an icon. The cast shadow from this position interrupts the harmony of the icon.

... Google's Newsstand is probably the most heavily used app on my phone. Take a look at it's icon:

So that's clear. #WellDoneGoogle.

All this said, I don't claim to have good a good eye for graphic design, and I do like the look of Material Design icons. I expect I'll be a full convert within a month.

I'll post tomorrow about the useful Material Design related resources I located online.

Hiatus end

I was just getting going with  Float, having released my first version and maintained it with a few upgrades in its first month. But then the burden of marketing and a full time job, and international travel, and Christmas, and various other excuses, go tin the way.

The end result: a few months with no development and no promotion.

This has had the disappointing consequence of a complete drop off in use of Float, and thereby a reduction in add revenue (from a few pence per month to no pence per month).

I guess I'm picking it up off the ground to try and build something with momentum this time.

What is reassuring though is that a few months of inactivity can limit new users, but it seems active installs can weather the storm:

So I've been hard at work these last few nights on the next major release. And the good news is I've got something exciting to show for it. Last night I played the first ever game of Float 3D:

The only final comment I'll make is... Coming Soon to an app store near you!

Just two problems with Google products

There's so much about Google and it's products that I really love. But this post is about two things that frustrate me. Now, maybe I've missed something and there are solutions to these problems. If that's the case, please comment to help me out! 

• Firstly, when publishing android apps there is a really powerful and really cool developers console that provides a lot of statistics and helps to see how quickly different releases were taken up, and (equally interesting) how quickly older versions died out. But there is a problem with the graphics - it only lists app versions that still exist in the wild. So you see from my screen shot below, the graphic shows big holes at times when app versions that are no longer being used were adopted by my users. I want to see those now extinct releases in my graphs! 

• Secondly, and completely unrelated to app development, is Google Play Music. I discovered recently that if you buy a track fro man album, and later want to buy the album, they still charge you full price!

I think my Dad is addicted to Float

Parents take an interest in their children and help them in their endeavours, right? Well it seems my dad is playing this role by helping to massively boost the user stats for my debut app, Float.

If you look at the screenshots, Australians are a minority "active users" group and yet account for about two thirds of the total game time elapsed since being released.

Most times when I check the stats, an Australian (hereafter referred to as Dad) is either currently playing or had played in the previous few hours.

Should I feel bad? Does Float need a health warning? The only thing that worries me more than the time Dad spends on Float is the amount of time I spend looking at my stats. Now THERE is addictive behaviour.

So I'll just say, thanks Dad, and keep at it. I'm sure you'll get a tile 9 eventually.

Responding to Critics

Following recent feedback, I've released a version 1.5.2 of Float for beta testing (if you are in the Float beta testing community). I expect this will be promoted to production release quite quickly. In the process of making this small change to the code I once again relied heavily on the terrific resource that is stackoverflow.com. I find myself using this platform for learning more than any other. I find it even more helpful than the main Android documentation over at developer.android.com. 

But I have one frustration... As I have not yet asked or answered a question on the site, I haven't been able to build any Reputation Points. This means I am ineligible for up-voting things. It's very strange to me that I've no way to show my gratitude to the invaluable help I get from the Site.

I Guess I'll just have to find a question to ask.