Google Visual Guidelines and Branding

As Fastcodesign has reported, a designer at Google recently released a number of their internal visual design guides on Behance. They serve as a testament to the detail that Google is paying to design these days: a far cry from the early “let’s A/B test 30 shades of blue” days where Google wasn’t known for its visual chops.

However, what I really find interesting is the Android Guidelines. They give a lot of solid suggestions as to UI and UX.

In the Enchant Me section, suggestions include: Real objects are more fun than buttons and menus (i.e. use direct manipulation where possible) and Let me make it mine:

People love to add personal touches because it helps them feel at home and in control. Provide sensible, beautiful defaults, but also consider fun, optional customizations that don’t hinder primary tasks.

Simplify My Life and Make Me Amazing includes advice on data storage and error reporting and consistency:

If it looks the same, it should act the same

Help people discern functional differences by making them visually distinct rather than subtle. Avoid modes, which are places that look similar but act differently on the same input.

As impressive as the visual assets are (and they are truly impressive in both their fidelity and their scale of execution), the interface guidelines are arguably the best I’ve seen (as they go one step beyond the excellent Mailchimp guidelines).