Remember the presentation Android Lollipop where we were shown Material Design with lots of cool animations? Since then, of course, application interfaces have really become 'material', but with animations somehow it did not work. The situation could be changed by a new motion-system, which was released by Google. It will allow developers to implement extremely interesting animations. The purpose of a motion system is to help users navigate and understand the relationship between application components. By the way, Google recently came up with a new control gesture in Android 11.
Google introduced a new animation system Android
In 2018, Google introduced an updated Material Design 2.0, but even there weren't any advanced animations.
New animations Android
The new system will allow interface elements to change their shape. So, for example, a list item can smoothly expand to full screen, and a floating button, when pressed, can transform into a modal window:
Developers will be able to implement transitions between parts of the list:
New window animations can look like this:
So far, this animation is only available at the system level. For example, in the settings Android.
Dialog boxes can now appear with beautiful fade animations:
Element transformation
The most interesting thing can be the transformation of the element. Now when you click on any element, it will be able to smoothly transform into another part of the interface. For example, it can be a list, clicking on an element of which smoothly opens a new window to full screen. It can be a music player: clicking on the cover of a composition will smoothly open a window with a music player. This interaction with the system makes the interface elements more coherent and understandable. The connection between each of the elements is traced.
In addition, an element can be transformed into another element not only in the case of a detailed page that takes up the entire screen, but also in the case, for example, with a small menu. The dialer button may not expand the keyboard to the full screen, and the composition launch button will only expand the controls to a small area at the bottom of the interface.
Google has also worked on the desktop interface. Applications in DeX mode will have these interesting animations adapted to the larger diagonal.
Three-axis animations are now available to application developers. Fade effect with a window appearing on the side, the same effect with a window appearing at the top or bottom, and fading the window along the z-axis:
And this can apply not only to windows, but also to small interface elements:
The least interesting is the new fade-through animation. It can be used in cases where there is no clear connection between the interface elements:
And this effect can also affect not only full-screen windows, but also small elements, for example, buttons or labels:
Animations Android Lollipop
In 2015, Google showed Material Design for the first time, and, in my opinion, right now they managed to implement the animations that were presented in the presentation video. Previously, we were only offered an updated design, without any special transitions. I remember being surprised at these smooth animations in 2015 and how disappointed I was that Google Play simply didn't have apps like this. And just now, Google has released a Motion system that will allow developers to implement unusual transitions and make interface development based on animations.
Animations Android and iOS
Why do people like iOS? Yes, simply because there are amazing animations – they are very smooth and enjoyable. In a compartment with a low touchscreen response in iPhone, the user gets some special emotions. С Android – there are no such devices. And I hope that with the new animation system Google will somehow be able to get closer to Apple in this matter.
When will apps with new animations appear?
This question remains open. Not so long ago, a new motion system became available to users of the Flutter mobile interface framework, and it is possible that in the near future the developers will put animation in the forefront. In addition, this is a fairly logical step, because in terms of design, in essence, moving forward today is possible only with the help of improved animations, because something else can hardly surprise users.
Did you like the new animations Android? Share your opinion in the comments and do not forget to subscribe to us in Yandex Zen.