Friday 3 December 2010

Action Bar Gallery - Part 2



... continuing from Action Bar Gallery - Part 1


In the latest update of YouTube application Google has utilised the action bar pattern. In each context the user has the most needed functionality available easily. In this app they have added an interesting twist by including "More" button in the action bar when more functions are relevant than the three you can comfortably fit into an action bar.










Evernote has fitted more icons into the action bar than other applications I have seen. They have, however, made an importan change when the action bar has more than three icons; they have removed the application name that normally follows the application icon. I think this change saves the design from looking too crowded and makes it very usable even with that many icons.

In note editing page they have used similar approach than Google used in the YouTube application by fitting in a drop-down menu. Icon used in this case very clearly indicates that this icon is not a direct action but a menu.





Appsfire's action bar is hidden by default on the app's landing page. Pulling down on the screen's main area brings the action bar down. 








Aldiko updated their app to use Android UI patterns. Their dashboard and action bar implementation is very stylish.






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4 comments:

  1. I have seen the Action Bar used as a smaller tab bar (one of the Earthquake apps). I guess this use is not correct, but there isn't much to stop someone doing it.
    Any thoughts?

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  2. Hey Richard, thank you for your comment.

    Yes I know the app you're talking about. I think we have to be careful not to take UI patterns as absolute answers. I personally want to see people adapting, experimenting and figuring out new ways of using them. I think that as long as it works (ie. has good usability) there's nothing wrong in changing them.

    In fact I have one blog post on todo where I've gathered interesting adaptations of the patterns I've talked about. I think Android developer community is full of amazing ideas.

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  3. http://developer.android.com/guide/topics/ui/actionbar.html#Tabs

    ReplyDelete