The Android platform is an open source operating system that can power mobile phones, netbook and tablet devices and has been used since September 2008. In Q4 2010 the Android operating system was the world's best-selling smartphone platform.

This rapid growth in market penetration coupled with the more “open” nature of the architecture and potential hardware can cause some design issues due to the sheer variation of handsets compared to Apple or Windows Phone 7.

Working from the Android Developers User Interface Guideline documents Solvd can design and develop apps that can function over the widest possible range of available hardware on the Android platform.

Solvd discuss the requirements with the customer including the design goals, functionality, Android versions to target and monetization issues such as in-app billing. From these discussions Solvd develop likely use cases to discuss who the likely users are and how they will interact with the app.
These use cases are rapidly turned into wireframe mock-ups that are passed to the customer for feedback. These wireframes are then transformed into a storyboard of screen mock-ups to demonstrate the apps screens and the flow between them.

Once the customer is happy with the storyboard mock-ups these are passed to designers and developers who produce the UI artefacts such as buttons to fit with the Android platform and the code to “glue” the application together and make it functional.

Typically with android UI elements such as icons and buttons have to be created three times each to cover each of the possible display resolutions (low, medium and high) and as such we produce our designs at the highest possible resolution then scale them down to keep image quality foremost.

From initial thoughts through to successful delivery into the Android Marketplace Solvd can design and deliver an Android application for you.