I am an Android developer; couple of days before my senior asked me to learn responsive design. I gone through the android docs published on developer.android.com, but i am not getting very clear idea. What am I suppose to learn? What are all the topics I need to cover ? As well as where is the material available for creating responsive design ?
He’s referring to - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Responsive_web_design
Which is not device specific. So that’s probably why you haven’t had much luck finding it in the Android Docs.
As Peter said (or linked) responsive design is a web design term and refers to the techniques used to make a web page adapt to any size, look great (that doesn’t mean that it has to look exactly the same ;)) and be usable and functional in any device, no matter its size.
Now, I don’t know what kind of development you do for Android. Maybe you create web based apps that are used on Android or you program using Java
If you use a programming language, I would think that he means that your program adapts to the screen size of any Android phone or tablet and also to whether the device is in horizontal or vertical position.
That could mean resizing buttons and stuff but it may also mean moving stuff around so it adapts to the size or even, for very small screens, decide what’s really important and remove a few features from a screen because there’s not enough room.
So basically, you’ll have to investigate about UX and user’s behaviours as well as how to move things all around.
Anyway, if you don’t know exactly what you need to look for, do ask your senior because he’s likely to know where you can find information.
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Hi Molona, thanks for replying.
For native android app, we got the options to make different layouts for different sizes, perhaps that can be the requirement for the android apps. If designing layouts for different sizes is only covered under the responsive design of app. than it’s not a big issue. I am bit aware of this, but is there any more features or techniques required that i have to look upon?
Right now we are not working on any project but it may/about to come to us. So I haven’t got much clear picture.
I would insist then to talk to your senior developer and be specific about what he means. The problem with us guessing is that we can get it wrong.
My understanding that you are aware that using a device when it is in vertical positiion is different than when it is horizontal but you may have not enough experience about designing intefaces and user experience. I’m assuming that this is the type of information your senior wants.
I don’t develope for Android so I can’t direct you to any specific reading.
But I do insist that when you don’t understand something, you should ask. There’s no stupid question and better make sure what he wants that assuming and getting wrong.
If you’re talking about native development, your senior developer is probably asking you to research developing for multiple devices/screen sizes. This document on developer.android.com gives some good guidelines on how to go about that.
If you’re doing a web project (i.e. PhoneGap) then read up on responsive web design and CSS media queries, since that’s how you’ll be defining your layouts.
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A Responsive Designer is also termed as the web designer who uses various web contents and techniques to design a web page no matter of its size. The only desired thing is that it could run on various devices. As a responsive designer make the use of various programming languages, it upgrades the quality of its web designed program. The aim of the designer is to reach of the application to a larger user base using an array o device.