Macadamian Blog

Android - Custom classes from XML layout

If you are relatively new to Android, I highly recommend you check out our guide: Your First Android Release - It Could Go Well (Or Really, Really Badly)

In Android, you can use a list view and define the layout for items in the list.  You can even use different layouts based on item type, each with different heights and content.

Is looking good as important as being useful?

Consumer software companies have always been concerned about the looks, or visual design, of their product. Lately, in a phenomenon that some of us in the UX design space call " The Apple Effect", enterprise software companies, telecommunications companies, and medical device compaines are all placing far more emphasis on visual design. Recently a customer, who develops a medical software product, told us explicitly - we want nothing less than a WOW! from customers when they see the new product.

Is looking good as important as being useful? Is great visual design as important as great usability?

Yes. Not at the expense of usability, mind you, but yes - great visual design is important.

Whether we like it or not, we all make snap judgements about products. We make decisions about it's quality and usefulness in a matter of a few seconds. If you create and sell software for a living, this is critical. Your future customers are deciding whether they should spend more time getting to know your product, and deciding whether they should buy it, based on a snap judgement. They decide when walking by your booth at a tradeshow whether they should stop for a second look based on what they see in the screenshots. They decide whether they should pay attention to the rest of the demo based on the first few seconds of seeing the product. It goes without saying though, that visual design can't be at the expense of usability - we've all tried to use great-looking products that simply don't work. They both have to work together in balance.

People will have an emotional reaction to your product, and as we're seeing in consumer products, it has a direct effect on sales. How do you know if you're acheiving a "Wow-Factor" with your product? Test for it. Early in the design phase, put the mockups or prototypes in front of some users, and observe their reactions. Get them to tell you their first impressions.

First impressions matter, so go forth and make great looking products. Just don't forget about usefulness and usability.