Smashing Android UI

Chapter 20: Data Design Patterns

Handling and showing data requires that you consider many factors, from both a performance and a usability point of view. In many apps, accessing the data is the user’s goal. Users want to see or modify a certain piece of information. If your app shows or manipulates data poorly, your users won’t be happy.

This chapter covers data-related user interface design patterns. It is worth noting that these are not data structure or data architecture design patterns; it doesn’t cover correct usage of databases or caches. There are other books that are better for that. This chapter covers data design issues from the user interface perspective.

The data design patterns discussed in this chapter include the following:

• Dynamic lists

• The image placeholder pattern

• The non-forced login pattern

• The drag-to-reorder handle

Using Dynamic lists

The dynamic list is one of the most common components in Android apps. They also are fairly complex from both a user interface point of view and from a code point of view. Android has great support for lists; it can automatically optimize memory usage and even recycle view objects for you. You must consider how much data you need to show in one list and how users can access more data when they need to.

Problems that lists solve

The list has a limited number of items in it. When you’re handling real-world data like social network update statuses or online store item catalogs, however, the amount of data will be much ...