UPDATED 11:52 EDT / OCTOBER 27 2016

APPS

Google unveils new Material Design toolkit for app designers

After taking the developer community by storm with its Go language and open-source projects such as Kubernetes, Google Inc. is setting its sights on another key segment of the technology world: application designers.

As part of its push, the search giant has unveiled a set of homegrown user interface tools that aim to streamline the visual element of software projects. The first offering in the lineup is an asset manager called Gallery where design teams can keep their various graphic resources for easy access.

It’s similar to Box and other general-purpose file-sharing services in a way, but offers specialized features such a versioning mechanism for managing different variations of the same content. There’s also a native presentation maker that lets design professionals showcase their work.

The more nitty-gritty aspects of an interface development project, meanwhile, can be handled using Remix, a collection of libraries that Google is rolling out alongside Gallery. It allows software engineers to expose application code through a relatively simple abstraction that enables their peers in the design department to easily tweak different variables. The tool thus provides the ability to quickly experiment with different color variations, fonts and the other small but important details that contribute to a positive user experience.

Because these parameters tend to vary across screen sizes, Google has released a database of device specifications alongside Remix that designers can consult while fine-tuning their apps. It’s also planning to roll out a more sophisticated prototyping tool called Stage later down the road that is meant to find use once an interface has already taken shape. Nicholas Jitkoff, a principal designer for Google, said it will “enable a more dynamic, intentional and systematic workflow for crafting digital experiences.”

Stage and the three other new projects will become available at material.io, a new site that the search has set up to aggregate resources related to its Material Design specification, a homegrown guide for creating user interfaces. Google clearly intends its tools to be used in projects that implement the standard, and likely created them with the specific goal of broadening its adoption.

But there’s nothing stopping users from employing a different style if that’s what a particular assignment requires. In other words, the Alphabet Inc. subsidiary is looking to target the broadest range of use cases possible as part of its efforts to court the design community.

Image of SPAN16, Google’s annual design conference in Los Angeles, courtesy of Google

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