Coming straight from Larva Labs

Sep 22, 2009 09:01 GMT  ·  By

Google's Android operating system seems to be a rather productive field when it comes to the user interface options that different makers around the world have layered on it. We already have the HTC Sense 'experience' that the Taiwanese handset vendor delivered with its HTC Hero on the market, as well as the MotoBlur solution coming from Motorola on its soon-to-be-here Cliq/Dext handset, yet other developers have also decided to apply their own ideas on top of Android's UI.

The fellows over at Larva Labs have already made a few steps in this direction, and their solution seems to be shaping up pretty well into what they call an “intelligent home screen design.” What their idea is all about involves separating the personal information of a user from other things that all people are interested into. Thus, they placed the emails, phone calls and all other things connected directly to the user on the status bar, while other content, including feeds and public information has been placed below.

Moreover, they also say that users will have the opportunity to drag the status bar up or down so as to select which items are more important and which are not. In case a user adds new items, the layout will prioritize them, so that the most recent items are given the necessary space. Although the project is only a prototype at the moment, its developers are confident that it will soon prove fruitful. The video placed at the bottom of this article will show you how this “intelligent home screen” works.

A post on Lava Labs' blog also delivers some info on the “principles and ideas” upon which their home screen design for Android is based: - The home screen of your phone should strive to show you as much relevant information as possible. - The interface to accomplish this should be information centric, as opposed to application centric. The iPhone is the current best case example of an application centric interface. Almost the entire screen is taken up with beautiful icons that tell you next to nothing. Rather than a number on an icon showing me how many new emails I have, I’d rather see some of those emails. - The existing Android design with various widgets on a home screen is visually distracting from the purpose of those widgets: quick access to information. We wanted a uniform look to allow an increase in information density without overwhelming the user. - Apply color coding across the entire interface to allow visual grouping of information by type. This also allows for higher information density by providing underlying structure and consistent cues to the user.

More details on the project can be found here.