Summary

In this chapter, we looked at how to design and then build a form screen in detail. These screens are an important part of applications, because they are where you users give you their details and as such they need to be especially intuitive and quick to use. Nobody likes to spend a lot of time filling in forms, and even less if they are using a mobile device. It's always good to remember that people normally use apps for relatively short periods of time; "what was that email?", is a more common action than "let me draft a letter to someone." This viewpoint helps when it comes to designing the user interfaces and overall experience you will build for your users.

It's always a good idea to sketch out your screen somewhere visually, and if you do, use software for it: ensure that it's something that lets you focus on layout and content rather than having to worry about colors, templates, or layout systems; always design first and then figure out how you'll build it. Pay attention to apps you enjoy using and that you find useful, look at how they do things--imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Don't copy people too closely, but draw inspiration from good ideas; your users will thank you for it as well, because you'll be presenting them with something familiar, and hopefully more innovative at the same time.

Try to keep all text, colors, and dimensions as resources, and use generic names for these resources wherever possible. It's not uncommon to have an ok and cancel resource defined right under the application's name, because they are commonly used throughout applications. Keeping these values in the resource system allows for changes to be made far more easily, and keeps the application look and experience consistent for your users.

In the next chapter, we'll look at events, the Android event model, and how to best deal with events from your user interfaces in a way that provides the best user experience, while also being the more flexible to program with.