I love that they included the ICS home screen's "glass desktop" effect in the "Delight me in surprising ways" section (http://developer.android.com/design/static/content/principle...). It's a completely unimportant feature, but the first time I swiped past the edge of my rightmost homescreen and saw the effect, I appreciated the attention to detail.
Where I disagree is with their "Pictures are faster than words" suggestion. I completely agree that many things are best said with images, but I've had a hard time identifying the function of several features in the icon-driven UI's featured in both ICS and in new Google web redesign. In ICS's Gmail app, I'd understand the words "Mark Unread" much quicker than the "sealed envelope" icon which I had to experimentally discover.
It's also interesting to note that in ICS Gmail, Mark Unread is an icon and Report Spam is text, where in web Gmail, Mark Unread is text and Report Spam is a stop sign.
I'm not saying it's right or good usability, but the new "picture based buttons" can be long-pressed for a textual toast-style popup that tells you what they do.
I love that they included the ICS home screen's "glass desktop" effect in the "Delight me in surprising ways" section (http://developer.android.com/design/static/content/principle...). It's a completely unimportant feature, but the first time I swiped past the edge of my rightmost homescreen and saw the effect, I appreciated the attention to detail.
Where I disagree is with their "Pictures are faster than words" suggestion. I completely agree that many things are best said with images, but I've had a hard time identifying the function of several features in the icon-driven UI's featured in both ICS and in new Google web redesign. In ICS's Gmail app, I'd understand the words "Mark Unread" much quicker than the "sealed envelope" icon which I had to experimentally discover.
It's also interesting to note that in ICS Gmail, Mark Unread is an icon and Report Spam is text, where in web Gmail, Mark Unread is text and Report Spam is a stop sign.