Smashing Android UI

Chapter 18: User Action Design Patterns

This chapter introduces and explains the user action design patterns. These patterns can help you solve issues related to presenting and performing user actions. Some of the design patterns are very commonly used and are an integral part of the Android platform (like the Action Bar pattern), whereas others are much more rare and solve more obscure problems.

The user action design patterns discussed in this chapter include the following:

• The Action Bar pattern

• The Quick Actions pattern

• The Action Drawer pattern

• The Pull-to-Refresh pattern

• The Swipe-to-Dismiss pattern

Using the Action Bar Pattern

The Action Bar is the styled top bar of a user interface view that consists of the app icon and the contextual action buttons. It can also optionally contain an overflow menu as well as some navigation options. The Action Bar is one of the defining user interface design patterns of the Android user interface language. This design pattern has been around for a long time and has become one of the most recognizable components of the Android user interface.

Problems Addressed

The Action Bar pattern can potentially be a solution to multiple different problems, each of which is discussed in the following sections.

Important Contextual Actions

Mobile apps have many actions that users can perform on any screen. Some of these actions are important and are used often. These actions can be, for example, sending an email from the compose screen or ...