Our second #materialdesign video today comes from +Richard Fulcher, a design lead at Google. In this 11-minute clip, Rich dives into the materials in material design. See how virtual paper and ink form the foundation of your tactile user interface and learn about the rules that govern their behavior.

A Spacecraft for All

This year, a team of scientists, engineers and programmers launched a crowdfunding campaign to fund a citizen science project to re-establish contact with a satellite sent to space by NASA in 1978. When +Richard The and his team at Google Creative Lab heard about the ISEE-3 Reboot Project, they got really excited about helping out. They created a new Chrome Experiment called A Spacecraft for All (spacecraftforall.com) that tells the story of ISEE-3’s history and the recent revival effort through a combination of video and interactive graphics. In the spirit of openness, it also provides access to data the satellite generates to the public.

In the interview with +designboom below, Richard talks about some of the design process and work that went into the Chrome Experiment:

DB: What were some of the key stages in the project’s development?
RT: It was a super fast process; we designed everything 2 months ago, the footage was shot, edited and the site built within the last month…

…The most novel and unique aspect was the journey section where we are combining linear video with interactive 3D graphic visualizations. Here we had to plan a shot with a good composition, and then hope the final footage worked well with our design. There was an amazing iterative process going between graphic and UI design, film and code until we got it to the point we wanted to have…

DB: What goals did the team set itself at the beginning of the project?
RT: Our main goal was to amplify the signal this crowdfunding team is broadcasting to the world. We realized quickly that in order to reach a broader public we needed to make the mission, the science and the technology easy to understand and accessible…

DB: What were some of the biggest challenges in realizing the project?
RT: One challenge was to get the layered illustrations right – because we were dealing with interview footage you cannot really plan a shot 100% accurately and it requires a lot of back and forth between code, design and video editing…

For the complete interview, click through below.

Screen density is a concept every UI designer should be intimately familiar with. Our very own +Sebastien Gabriel just published an epic, comprehensive guide for understanding and working with screen density on a number of platforms. Check it out below and let Sebastien know if you've got questions.

Our latest #materialdesign story is about how our Google I/O 2014 Android app team applied material design principles throughout their design process. For more, check the link below, and download the app on Google Play to see it in action: goo.gl/d0eh2v

Doing the right thing for the user

Designers & developers—they’re not so different if you think about it: while they’re both passionate about the ideas they're bringing to life, a lot of their decisions are driven by hard requirements set by management or their client. But one thing’s for sure, both designers and developers want to do right by the user. And as designers and developers, we need the tools to help us support our design decisions, by showing our stakeholders how these decisions benefit the user.

UX research is one such, very powerful, tool. It allows us to figure out what actual, real users need or want, and just as importantly, what they don't need or want. User research is a great way to collect data from the right pool of users (existing and prospective customers) and validate assumptions that designers & developers might have. As an industry, it's important that we integrate UX research deeply into our process, so that we can bring to life products that are truly compelling, and quickly discard ideas that aren’t useful to anyone.

In the video below, +Richard Fulcher gives a designer’s perspective on the benefits of UX research. The video is just a small part of a new +Udacity course on UX Design here: bit.ly/uxdclass. Better yet, the course is free! Just click on “View courseware” to get started. And for even more UX Design content, check out our series on YouTube: bit.ly/uxdplaylist

Happy researching!

#UXDesign #UXD

So how do you begin updating your Android app with material design? Here's an example from the Google I/O keynote (goo.gl/9OVnuh), based on Gmail. It showcases the new avatar style, keylines and baseline grid, standard type sizes, color-driven branding, iconography, floating action buttons, and adaptive design across screen sizes.

Have you started updating your app with material design? Share your work in the comments!

Material design won Gold for Best Contribution to UX at the 2014 User Experience Awards yesterday! Congratulations to all the winners and a round of applause for the amazing entries this year (see them all at userexperienceawards.com/entries).

Speaking of #materialdesign, we’ve got two new short videos to share today. The first is a lightning-fast introduction to our new design approach by +Bethany Fong, an interaction designer here at Google. Check out the 2-minute clip and the rest of the videos in the playlist below.

These days, designing compelling web apps and sites that load quickly, look beautiful, and are intuitive requires keeping up with lots of ever-evolving best practices. To make things easier for web designers and developers, we've been gathering and documenting our learnings over at Google Web Fundamentals. Our latest update to the site includes some great material for web designers: Principles of Site Design and Animations.

Principles of Site Design includes an invaluable collection of insights gained from user research, such as how to provide intuitive navigation, when and how to "upsell" to your apps, and streamlining user journeys.

https://developers.google.com/web/fundamentals/principles

Animations give much-needed personality to your projects—but what should you animate, when should you animate it, and how? Getting animations just right is key to your users' experience. Covering everything from easing to performance, these guides give you the knowledge and insight to level up your next project.

https://developers.google.com/web/fundamentals/look-and-feel/animations

Have a great resource on mobile web design you'd like to share? Let us know in the comments!

Meet Marius, a rich media expert from Holland and a life-long creative technologist. For the launch of the revamped Google Web Designer, we asked Marius to give us a peek into his world as a designer and help us push the limits of HTML5 with a “Google Web Designer Thought Experiment.” Read more at goo.gl/QCQWkW #GoogleWebDesigner 

As a designer, you need to be thinking about how your digital content renders across screens. What looks great on a desktop may not render well—or at all—on a smartphone or tablet. Building in HTML5 is one way to overcome the challenges of cross-screen design, and the revamped Google Web Designer, launching today, helps you easily build interactive and animated HTML5 content for free. 

The updated tools gives you more granular control over your designs, while providing the space to stretch your artistic muscles—a full 3D environment, advanced timeline with scrubbing capabilities, and open components code that lets you hack our existing components or create your own from scratch.

Check out the video below or read more at goo.gl/hbjVZt

#GoogleWebDesigner

The other day, our very own +Jon Wiley shared his thoughts on search, material design, and making tough choices as a designer in his "Ask me Anything" thread on +reddit. Read it here: goo.gl/LF7Q66

He also voiced his unique point of view on other topics…

Over on the +Google Students blog, we just started a series called #interninsights. Our interns get to work on some of our most cutting edge projects, and they bring a fresh perspective, which is great for unlocking design insights. In this first post, meet Fiona Yeung, a User Experience Design Intern working at our Mountain View Headquarters. Fiona is a graphic designer attending York University/Sheridan College in Toronto where she is pursuing a Bachelors in Design.

#googleinterns