-Android wearables provide just the right information at just the right time, allowing you to be connected to the virtual world and present in the real world.
-
-
-
-
Here you’ll find some guidelines for designing great user experiences on the Android Wear
-platform. Designing for Android Wear is substantially different than designing for phones or
-tablets, so we’ll start by describing how your content can work in tandem with the overall
-Android Wear vision. To better understand the user experience on Android Wear, also be sure
-to read the UI Overview.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
Android Wear experiences are:
-
-
-
Contextually aware and smart. These devices bring a new level of awareness to computing. Rather than requiring attention and input from users, Android wearables are aware of their situation and state, and helpfully display the right information at the right time. Timely, relevant, specific.
-
-
Glanceable. Wearable devices are used all throughout the day, even when they sit in our peripheral vision. Effective apps provide the maximum payload of information with a minimum of fuss, optimized to provide tiny snippets of relevant information throughout the day. Short, sharp, immediate.
-
-
Zero/low interaction. Staying true to the strengths afforded by a smaller form factor, Android Wear focuses on simple interactions, only requiring input by the user when absolutely necessary. Most inputs are based around touch swipes or voice, and inputs requiring fine-grained motor skills are avoided. Gestural, simple, fast.
-
-
Helpful. Android Wear is like a great personal assistant: it knows you and your preferences, it only interrupts you when absolutely necessary, and it’s always on hand to provide a ready answer. Efficient, respectful, responsive.
-
-
-
-
-By providing a smart connection to the rest of the world while respecting the user’s attention, Android Wear feels personal and global, simple and smart, unobtrusive and ever-ready. Notifications that respect these principles will feel most at home in the overall Android Wear experience.
-
-
-
-
-
Notification UI Patterns
-
-
Android notifications appear as cards in the main stream and form the core of the Android Wear experience. Many of the main Android Design guidelines for notifications apply in Android Wear. Be respectful of users' attention and aware of how unnecessary interruptions will reflect on your application’s reputation.
-
-
Omit needless text from your notifications. Design for glanceability, not reading. Use words and phrases, not sentences. Show, don't tell: where possible use simple icons, glyphs, and visualizations to convey your message.
-
-
-
In some cases, particularly with messaging applications, cards will contain dynamic content which may not fit on a single screen. In these cases the content will be automatically truncated to fit on the card and the user may tap to expand, so the full message should be provided.
-
-
Notification priority should reflect the urgency of your notification, with only time-sensitive notifications carrying a high priority. Active notifications – that is, those that cause the device to vibrate – should only be used in cases that need the user's urgent attention or action (e.g. a time-based reminder, a message from a friend). Non-urgent notifications (e.g. a transit times card, daily pedometer count, social network updates) should be silently added to the card stream.
-
-
-
-
-
Actions
-
-
-
-
Actions appear to the right of your notification, allowing the user to act on your notification. Up to three actions are permitted. The most-used action should be placed first, so that it is a single swipe away from your content.
-
-
Actions consist of an icon and a caption. Icons should be PNG files, white on transparent background, 32 × 32 dp (with 8 dp padding), as specified in the Iconography design guide
-for the action bar icons. Captions should be verb-driven and short, and will be automatically truncated at one line.
-
-
Actions are optional. Many useful notifications will not need to include actions at all.
Images appear behind cards in the stream, providing context and additional glanceability. Your image should support the core message of the notification; for example, a card about a sports team could include the team color and logo; a message from a contact should display that person's profile photo.
-
-
Bear in mind that the card will partially cover the lower part of the image. Images should be sized as
-appropriate for the notification appearance on handsets, which is 64 x 64 dp. Image backgrounds move when horizontally swiped, so landscape-oriented images work better on notifications that include pages or actions.
Your application’s launcher icon will be automatically placed on the card, identifying your notification. Do not use the notification title or background image to identify or brand your application. Instead, allow your icon to identify itself and focus on delivering a clear, succinct message in the card and image. You can choose not to display this icon using
- setHintHideIcon().
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
Pages
-
-
Pages are additional cards that can appear to the right of your main card in the stream. If your core message is longer than a short snippet, do not sacrifice glanceability by packing a lot of information into your primary notification. Instead, use pages to provide additional content.
-
-
-
-
-
-
Pages appear immediately to the right of the main notification card. They are typically used to provide additional details or alternate views of the main card’s content. For example:
-
-
A current weather card might provide an additional page showing a three-day forecast.
-
A next train departure card might provide an additional page showing subsequent departures times.
-
A daily step count card might provide an additional page showing the same measurement in calories and distance.
-
-
-
There is no imposed limit on the number of pages you may add. However, notifications that provide actions should show no more than three pages to ensure that the actions remain easily accessible.
-
-
Pages are optional. Many useful notifications will not need to include pages at all.
Stacks may be used to collect multiple notifications from the same application into a single stack of cards. Whereas pages are used to provide additional detail on a single notification, stacks are used to collect multiple sibling notifications together. A stack may be expanded by the user to access each individual card contained within.
-
-
Stacks are a way of adding multiple useful notifications without overwhelming the user’s stream. If your application may produce multiple concurrent notifications, consider combining them into a stack.
-
-
Each notification within a stack can contain separate pages and separate actions that are relevant to that specific notification. The user can access these actions after expanding that notification's card within the stack.
Voice replies are primarily used by messaging applications to provide a hands-free way of dictating a short message. You can also provide a up to five suggested replies or “canned responses” that are useful in a wide range of cases. These canned responses can be tapped by the user, allowing for a fast method of sending simple replies in cases where speaking may not be desirable.
-
-
You should attempt to cover a range of simple, neutral replies in your choices. Longer voice replies may be automatically truncated in the Voice reply UI.
+Android wearables provide just the right information at just the right time, allowing you to be connected to the virtual world and present in the real world.
+
+
+
+
Here you’ll find some guidelines for designing great user experiences on the Android Wear
+platform. Designing for Android Wear is substantially different than designing for phones or
+tablets, so we’ll start by describing how your content can work in tandem with the overall
+Android Wear vision. To better understand the user experience on Android Wear, also be sure
+to read the UI Overview.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
Android Wear experiences are:
+
+
+
Contextually aware and smart. These devices bring a new level of awareness to computing. Rather than requiring attention and input from users, Android wearables are aware of their situation and state, and helpfully display the right information at the right time. Timely, relevant, specific.
+
+
Glanceable. Wearable devices are used all throughout the day, even when they sit in our peripheral vision. Effective apps provide the maximum payload of information with a minimum of fuss, optimized to provide tiny snippets of relevant information throughout the day. Short, sharp, immediate.
+
+
Zero/low interaction. Staying true to the strengths afforded by a smaller form factor, Android Wear focuses on simple interactions, only requiring input by the user when absolutely necessary. Most inputs are based around touch swipes or voice, and inputs requiring fine-grained motor skills are avoided. Gestural, simple, fast.
+
+
Helpful. Android Wear is like a great personal assistant: it knows you and your preferences, it only interrupts you when absolutely necessary, and it’s always on hand to provide a ready answer. Efficient, respectful, responsive.
+
+
+
+
+By providing a smart connection to the rest of the world while respecting the user’s attention, Android Wear feels personal and global, simple and smart, unobtrusive and ever-ready. Notifications that respect these principles will feel most at home in the overall Android Wear experience.
+
+
+
+
+
Notification UI Patterns
+
+
Android notifications appear as cards in the main stream and form the core of the Android Wear experience. Many of the main Android Design guidelines for notifications apply in Android Wear. Be respectful of users' attention and aware of how unnecessary interruptions will reflect on your application’s reputation.
+
+
Omit needless text from your notifications. Design for glanceability, not reading. Use words and phrases, not sentences. Show, don't tell: where possible use simple icons, glyphs, and visualizations to convey your message.
+
+
+
In some cases, particularly with messaging applications, cards will contain dynamic content which may not fit on a single screen. In these cases the content will be automatically truncated to fit on the card and the user may tap to expand, so the full message should be provided.
+
+
Notification priority should reflect the urgency of your notification, with only time-sensitive notifications carrying a high priority. Active notifications – that is, those that cause the device to vibrate – should only be used in cases that need the user's urgent attention or action (e.g. a time-based reminder, a message from a friend). Non-urgent notifications (e.g. a transit times card, daily pedometer count, social network updates) should be silently added to the card stream.
+
+
+
+
+
Actions
+
+
+
+
Actions appear to the right of your notification, allowing the user to act on your notification. Up to three actions are permitted. The most-used action should be placed first, so that it is a single swipe away from your content.
+
+
Actions consist of an icon and a caption. Icons should be PNG files, white on transparent
+background, 32 × 32 dp (with 8 dp padding), as specified in the Iconography design guide for action bar
+icons. Captions should be verb-driven and short, and will be automatically truncated at one line.
+
+
+
Actions are optional. Many useful notifications will not need to include actions at all.
Images appear behind cards in the stream, providing context and additional glanceability. Your image should support the core message of the notification; for example, a card about a sports team could include the team color and logo; a message from a contact should display that person's profile photo.
+
+
Bear in mind that the card will partially cover the lower part of the image. Images should
+be sized as appropriate for the notification appearance on handsets, which is 64 x 64 dp. Image backgrounds move when horizontally swiped, so landscape-oriented images work better on notifications that include pages or actions.
+
+
To add large images, use {@link android.support.v4.app.NotificationCompat.Builder#setLargeIcon
+setLargeIcon()} with any notification, as
+shown in Creating
+Notifications for Android Wear.
+
+
+
+
+
+
Application Icons
+
+
+
+
Your application’s launcher icon will be automatically placed on the card, identifying your notification. Do not use the notification title or background image to identify or brand your application. Instead, allow your icon to identify itself and focus on delivering a clear, succinct message in the card and image. You can choose not to display this icon using
+ setHintHideIcon().
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
Pages
+
+
Pages are additional cards that can appear to the right of your main card in the stream. If your core message is longer than a short snippet, do not sacrifice glanceability by packing a lot of information into your primary notification. Instead, use pages to provide additional content.
+
+
+
+
+
+
Pages appear immediately to the right of the main notification card. They are typically used to provide additional details or alternate views of the main card’s content. For example:
+
+
A current weather card might provide an additional page showing a three-day forecast.
+
A next train departure card might provide an additional page showing subsequent departures times.
+
A daily step count card might provide an additional page showing the same measurement in calories and distance.
+
+
+
There is no imposed limit on the number of pages you may add. However, notifications that provide actions should show no more than three pages to ensure that the actions remain easily accessible.
+
+
Pages are optional. Many useful notifications will not need to include pages at all.
Stacks may be used to collect multiple notifications from the same application into a single stack of cards. Whereas pages are used to provide additional detail on a single notification, stacks are used to collect multiple sibling notifications together. A stack may be expanded by the user to access each individual card contained within.
+
+
Stacks are a way of adding multiple useful notifications without overwhelming the user’s stream. If your application may produce multiple concurrent notifications, consider combining them into a stack.
+
+
Each notification within a stack can contain separate pages and separate actions that are relevant to that specific notification. The user can access these actions after expanding that notification's card within the stack.
Voice replies are primarily used by messaging applications to provide a hands-free way of dictating a short message. You can also provide a up to five suggested replies or “canned responses” that are useful in a wide range of cases. These canned responses can be tapped by the user, allowing for a fast method of sending simple replies in cases where speaking may not be desirable.
+
+
You should attempt to cover a range of simple, neutral replies in your choices. Longer voice replies may be automatically truncated in the Voice reply UI.
A new form factor deserves a new UI model. At a high level, the Android Wear UI consists of two
-main spaces centered around the core functions of Suggest and
-Demand. Your application will have an important role to play in both of these
-spaces.
-
-
-
-
Suggest: The Context Stream
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
The context stream is a vertical list of cards, each showing a useful or timely piece of
-information. Much like Google Now on Android phones and tablets, users swipe vertically to navigate
-from card to card for a brief and comprehensive update about what's important to them. Only one card
-is displayed on screen at a time, and background images are used to provide additional visual
-information. Your application can create cards and inject them into the stream when they are most
-likely to be useful.
-
-
Cards in the stream are more than simple notifications. They can be swiped horizontally to
-reveal additional pages. Further horizontal swiping may reveal tappable buttons, allowing the user
-to take action on the notification. Cards can also be dismissed by swiping left to right, removing
-them from the stream until the next time they have useful information to display.
-In the emulator, hovering the mouse over the top of the screen illuminates a blue bar at
-the top of the device that takes you home when clicked.
-
-
-
-
Demand: The Cue Card
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
For cases where the context stream can't anticipate what the user would like to do, the cue card
-allows users to speak to their device. The cue card is opened by saying, "Ok Google" or by tapping
-on the "g" icon on the home screen. Swiping up on the cue card shows a list of actions, which can
-also be tapped.
-
-
The list of actions includes Android intents for voice actions. The upcoming Android Wear SDK
-will enable developers to match their applications to these intents so users can perform actions
-using these voice commands. Multiple applications may register for a single voice intent, and users
-will have the opportunity to choose which application they prefer to use.
A new form factor deserves a new UI model. At a high level, the Android Wear UI consists of two
+main spaces centered around the core functions of Suggest and
+Demand. Your application will have an important role to play in both of these
+spaces.
+
+
+
+
Suggest: The Context Stream
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
The context stream is a vertical list of cards, each showing a useful or timely piece of
+information. Much like Google Now on Android phones and tablets, users swipe vertically to navigate
+from card to card for a brief and comprehensive update about what's important to them. Only one card
+is displayed on screen at a time, and background images are used to provide additional visual
+information. Your application can create cards and inject them into the stream when they are most
+likely to be useful.
+
+
Cards in the stream are more than simple notifications. They can be swiped horizontally to
+reveal additional pages. Further horizontal swiping may reveal tappable buttons, allowing the user
+to take action on the notification. Cards can also be dismissed by swiping left to right, removing
+them from the stream until the next time they have useful information to display.
+In the emulator, hovering the mouse over the top of the screen illuminates a blue bar at
+the top of the device that takes you home when clicked.
+
+
+
+
Demand: The Cue Card
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
For cases where the context stream can't anticipate what the user would like to do, the cue card
+allows users to speak to their device. The cue card is opened by saying, "Ok Google" or by tapping
+on the "g" icon on the home screen. Swiping up on the cue card shows a list of actions, which can
+also be tapped.
+
+
The list of actions includes Android intents for voice actions. The upcoming Android Wear SDK
+will enable developers to match their applications to these intents so users can perform actions
+using these voice commands. Multiple applications may register for a single voice intent, and users
+will have the opportunity to choose which application they prefer to use.
This is the Android Wear Developer Preview License Agreement.
1. Introduction
@@ -510,72 +140,3 @@ This is the Android Wear Developer Preview License Agreement.
14.7 This License Agreement, and your relationship with Google under this License Agreement, shall be governed by the laws of the State of California without regard to its conflict of laws provisions. You and Google agree to submit to the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts located within the county of Santa Clara, California to resolve any legal matter arising from this License Agreement. Notwithstanding this, you agree that Google shall still be allowed to apply for injunctive remedies (or an equivalent type of urgent legal relief) in any jurisdiction.
When an Android device such as a phone or tablet is connected to an Android wearable,
-all notifications are shared between the devices by default. On the Android wearable, each
-notification appears as a new card in the context stream.
-
-
-
-
-
So without any effort, your app notifications are available to users on Android Wear.
-However, you can enhance the user experience in several ways. For instance,
-if users may respond to a notification by entering text, such as to reply to
-a message, you can add the ability for users to reply by voice directly from the
-wearable.
-
-
To help you provide the best user experience
-for your notifications on Android Wear, this guide shows you how to
-build notifications using standard templates in
-the NotificationCompat.Builder APIs, plus how to begin
-extending your notification's capabilities for the wearable user experience.
-
-
Note:
-Notifications using RemoteViews are stripped of custom
-layouts and the system uses only the text and icons in the
-Notification object to
-display the notification in a card. However, custom card layouts will be supported by
-the official Android Wear SDK that is coming later.
-
-
-
-
-
-
Import the Necessary Classes
-
-
To begin development, you must first complete the instructions in the Get Started with the Developer Preview document.
-As mentioned in that document, your app must include
-both the v4 support
-library and the Developer Preview support library. So to get started,
-you should include the following imports in your project code:
Caution:
-The APIs in the current Android Wear Developer Preview are intended for development and testing purposes only, not for production apps. Google may change this Developer Preview significantly prior to the official release of the Android Wear SDK. You may not publicly distribute or ship any application using this Developer Preview, as this Developer Preview will no longer be supported after the official SDK is released (which will cause applications based only on the Developer Preview to break).
-
-
-
-
Create Notifications with the Notification Builder
-
-
The v4
-support library allows you to create notifications using the latest notification features
-such as action buttons and large icons, while remaining compatible with Android 1.6 (API level
-4) and higher.
-int notificationId = 001;
-// Build intent for notification content
-Intent viewIntent = new Intent(this, ViewEventActivity.class);
-viewIntent.putExtra(EXTRA_EVENT_ID, eventId);
-PendingIntent viewPendingIntent =
- PendingIntent.getActivity(this, 0, viewIntent, 0);
-
-NotificationCompat.Builder notificationBuilder =
- new NotificationCompat.Builder(this)
- .setSmallIcon(R.drawable.ic_event)
- .setContentTitle(eventTitle)
- .setContentText(eventLocation)
- .setContentIntent(viewPendingIntent);
-
-// Get an instance of the NotificationManager service
-NotificationManagerCompat notificationManager =
- NotificationManagerCompat.from(this);
-
-// Build the notification and issues it with notification manager.
-notificationManager.notify(notificationId, notificationBuilder.build());
-
-
-
When this notification appears on a handheld device, the user can invoke the
-PendingIntent
-specified by the setContentIntent() method by touching the notification. When this
-notification appears on an Android wearable, the user can swipe the notification to the left to
-reveal the Open action, which invokes the intent on the handheld device.
For example, the following code shows the same type of notification from above, but adds an
-action to view the event location on a map.
-
-
-// Build an intent for an action to view a map
-Intent mapIntent = new Intent(Intent.ACTION_VIEW);
-Uri geoUri = Uri.parse("geo:0,0?q=" + Uri.encode(location));
-mapIntent.setData(geoUri);
-PendingIntent mapPendingIntent =
- PendingIntent.getActivity(this, 0, mapIntent, 0);
-
-NotificationCompat.Builder notificationBuilder =
- new NotificationCompat.Builder(this)
- .setSmallIcon(R.drawable.ic_event)
- .setContentTitle(eventTitle)
- .setContentText(eventLocation)
- .setContentIntent(viewPendingIntent)
- .addAction(R.drawable.ic_map,
- getString(R.string.map), mapPendingIntent);
-
-
-
On a handheld device, the action appears as an
-additional button attached to the notification. On an Android wearable, the action appears as
-a large button when the user swipes the notification to the left. When the user taps the action,
-the associated Intent is invoked on the handheld device.
-
-
Tip: If your notifications includes a "Reply" action
- (such as for a messaging app), you can enhance the behavior by enabling
- voice input replies directly from the Android wearable. For more information, read
- Receiving Voice Input from a Notification.
-
You can insert extended text content
-to your notification by adding one of the "big view" styles to your notification. On a
-handheld device, users can see the big view content by expanding the notification,
-while on Android Wear, the big view content is visible by default.
For example, the following code adds an instance of
-NotificationCompat.BigTextStyle to the event notification,
-in order to include the complete event description (which includes more text than can fit
-into the space provided for setContentText()).
-
-
-
-// Specify the 'big view' content to display the long
-// event description that may not fit the normal content text.
-BigTextStyle bigStyle = new NotificationCompat.BigTextStyle();
-bigStyle.bigText(eventDescription);
-
-NotificationCompat.Builder notificationBuilder =
- new NotificationCompat.Builder(this)
- .setSmallIcon(R.drawable.ic_event)
- .setLargeIcon(BitmapFractory.decodeResource(
- getResources(), R.drawable.notif_background))
- .setContentTitle(eventTitle)
- .setContentText(eventLocation)
- .setContentIntent(viewPendingIntent)
- .addAction(R.drawable.ic_map,
- getString(R.string.map), mapPendingIntent)
- .setStyle(bigStyle);
-
-
-
Notice that you can add a large background image to any notification using the
-setLargeIcon()
-method. For more information about designing notifications with large images, see the
-Design Principles of Android
-Wear.
-
-
-
-
Add New Features for Wearables
-
-
The Android Wear preview support library provides new APIs that
- allow you to enhance the user experience for notifications on a wearable device. For example,
- you can add additional pages of content that users can view by swiping to the left, or add the ability
-for users to deliver your app a text response using voice input.
-// Create a NotificationCompat.Builder for standard notification features
-NotificationCompat.Builder notificationBuilder =
- new NotificationCompat.Builder(mContext)
- .setContentTitle("New mail from " + sender.toString())
- .setContentText(subject)
- .setSmallIcon(R.drawable.new_mail);
-
-// Create a WearablesNotification.Builder to add special functionality for wearables
-Notification notification =
- new WearableNotifications.Builder(notificationBuilder)
- .setHintHideIcon(true)
- .build();
-
-
-
The
- setHintHideIcon() method removes your app icon from the notification card.
- This method is just one example of new notification features available from the
- WearableNotifications.Builder class.
-// Get an instance of the NotificationManager service
-NotificationManagerCompat notificationManager =
- NotificationManagerCompat.from(this);
-
-// Build the notification and issues it with notification manager.
-notificationManager.notify(notificationId, notification);
-
To continue enhancing your notifications for wearables using
- WearableNotifications.Builder and other APIs in the
- preview support library, see the following developer guides:
- 
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