A—C

Interface design for the next generation of the Material Design system, launched on the flagship Pixel smartphone; visual and interaction design, in collaboration with Material Design, Seed Studio, and related product teams.

iF Design Gold Award 2022 ↴
Better Together: Material You on Android 12 / Mobile OS

iF Gold Statement ↴
"Material You, Google's new mobile operating system, allows a high level of flexibility and scalability while maintaining consistency across all product ecosystems. It successfully reflects a human mental model in its visual design language. This user-centered approach to digital design is a good example of how operating systems are becoming more responsive to users' needs and preferences."

Google Inc Statement ↴
"Material You, Android 12, and Pixel 6 is a cohesive software and hardware experience that challenges the persistent one-size-fits-all approach to OS design. Material You is Google’s latest design language, which brings a more personal, accessible, and adaptive experience to both Google and the open-source community. Hardware and software were co-developed as a holistic design experience that puts the user at its center."

Launched at Google I/O
2021 05 18

Android 12
Pixel 6

Visual Design Lead ↴
Material Next (Material You)
Pixel OS

Feature Areas ↴
Assistant
Shade
Quick Settings
Media Player
Volume Controls
Power
Status
Privacy
Settings

Widgets
↳ Clock
↳ Photos
↳ Calendar
↳ Weather
↳ Media

Launcher
↳ Customization
↳ Widgets

Translate
↳ Lens / Camera
↳ Messaging
↳ Keyboard / Gboard

Teams ↴
Android Visual & Motion Design
Material Design
Seed Studio

Google I/O ↴
Google I/O 2021, 2021 05 18
Keynote 2021 05 18
Developer Keynote 2021 05 18

Press / Google ↴
Google, Pixel 6 + Tensor 2021 08 03
Google, Material You 2021 05 18
Google, The Keyword 2021 05 18
Google, Better Together 2021 05 18
Google, Wear
Google, Future of Work 2021 05 18
Google, Android 12 2021 05 18

Press / Articles ↴
Wired 2021 05 21
The Guardian 2021 05 18
Fast Company 2021 05 18
CNN 2021 05 18
CNET 2021 05 18
Ars Technica 2021 05 18
TechCrunch 2021 05 18
Engadget 2021 05 18
Gizmodo 2021 05 18
9 to 5 2021 05 19
9 to 5 2021 05 18
GMS Arena 2021 05 18

Press / Videos ↴
Android 12 vs iOS 15 2021 07 17
Marques Brownlee 2021 06 13
The Verge 2021 05 18
Google, New in Android 2021 05 18
Google, New in Widgets 2021 05 18
Google, New in Media 2021 05 18
Google, New in Foldables 2021 05 18
Google, New in Privacy 2021 05 18

Social ↴
Material Design
Android
Material You

“Android 12 exudes confidence in its design, unafraid to make everything much larger and a little more playful. Every big design change can be polarizing, and I expect Android users who prefer information density in their UI may find it a little off-putting. But in just a few days, it has already grown on me.”
—The Verge

“Nothing articulates the value of Material You more than the way it treats color palettes. While I’ve yet to try it myself, Google’s plan to build your entire phone’s color scheme from your wallpaper is a brilliant idea. That’s because, while almost no one changes the defaults of their software, Google says 60% of people update their wallpaper—and the images are often highly personal pictures of families and experiences.”
—Fast Company

Guiding Principles
↳ Comfortable
↳ Iconoclastic
↳ Spirited
↳↳ Shape
↳↳ Space
↳↳ Light
↳↳ Motion

Attributes / Behaviors
↳ Adaptive
↳ Accessible
↳ Inclusive
↳ Humanist
↳ ...

As one of the design leads on Material Next (aka Material You), I can share that the design of Android 12 was built first on the brand attribute of “adaptive” which is something many brands (and brand designers) tout but few can pull off thoroughly. Amongst an interdisciplinary team equally deep in engineering and design, this means the entire system UI color palette adapts to the user’s choice of a wallpaper, in both light and dark themes, auto-corrected to ensure WCAG-compliant contrast and legibility, thanks to a daily iterative process of fine tuning machine learning to our design team's evolving frameworks of color intent and color theory.

Furthermore, our typography and shape system is also designed from the ground-up with accessibility in mind, allowing for everything to adapt and morph to fit any given container, be it a control set, a phone, watch, TV, or multiple surfaces around an environment.

Android has over 3 billion active devices around the world, across multiple languages, ages, abilities, and so unlike many competitor’s operating systems, we had to start by truly respecting the needs of a global community. This is why Material You includes the user as the final decision maker of the interface of each device, creating personalized identity systems created from unique combinations of parameters that even we as the original design team may not even have known existed until the user proudly shares a screenshot of their most personal device.

Full case study, design iterations, and other behind the scenes forthcoming.

Mirrored on The Dots, WNW, Behance, assets to be available soon on Are.na.

Colophon ↴
about
studio

Contact ↴
@andrewchee
[email protected]
1 917 375 2524

All tags ↴
spaces
objects
interfaces
systems
actions

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Updated ↴
2024 Apr 25 08:17:28 UTC, CC BY-SA International, Andrew Chee.