Updated specs and new tools premiered at Google I/O 2015

May 29, 2015 00:32 GMT  ·  By
Matias Duarte presenting updates in Material Design at Google I/O 2015
6 photos
   Matias Duarte presenting updates in Material Design at Google I/O 2015

Material Design, Google's visual design language premiered at last year's I/O event, received an update in this year's conference with updated specifications, new dev & design tools, and a new website.

Viewed with doubt when it came out, Material Design is now the de-facto design standard when it comes to all of Google's products, slowly making its way into more and more outside services as well.

At Google I/O 2015, Matias Duarte, Google's VP of Design, gave an insightful presentation on how Material Design evolved the past year and what tools the Google team created and launched via the redesigned Google Design website.

With over 2.5 million unique visitors and more than 60% returning users, this meager website containing a basic design spec can now go head to head with any cat video on YouTube, and you can let go of any hopes Google straying away from it in the upcoming future.

The design specification is so hot right now that over 250,000 Android apps on the Play store are sporting it, and since Lollipop was released last October, over 40% of all new submitted apps are implementing Material Design one way or another.

New tools to improve Material Design adoption

Along with the Material Design website facelift, new items were added to the spec as well, with extra FAB (Floating Action Button) patterns, an icons library (also available as a Web font), and a device metrics reference guide for working with mobile and other wearable devices.

Since the original spec covered Web and Android use cases, new design guides were also added for developing Material apps for Android TV, Android Auto, and Google Cardboard.

The Polymer framework which launched its first 1.0 stable version the morning before Google I/O is also now fully integrated with the Material Design guidelines, providing a large number of ready-made "paper" elements, enabling developers to build app-like interfaces for regular websites.

The Material Design Awards 2015

But any talk about Material Design won't be complete without mentioning Android, where Material Design components are now available for developers, with fallback support covering Android versions 2.1 and higher.

And since Android apps have played such a big role in the adoption and promotion of Material Design, at the end of his presentation Mr. Duarte also announced the winners of the first Material Design Awards:

Adaptive Layouts: Pocket Seamless Browsing: Pocket Casts Immersive Imagery: B&H Photo Video Audio Pro Elegant Typography: The New York Times Delightful Animation: Tumblr Crafted Simplicity: Weather Timeline

The Material Design specification is more successful than you think (6 Images)

Matias Duarte presenting updates in Material Design at Google I/O 2015
The device metrics reference from Material DesignThe new Icons Library from Material Design
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