How I use AI to partner on design problems
A design workflow where AI holds the context and I do the thinking — from brainstorm to prototype.
Suleiman's Blog
Design, Android, and the web.
Latest posts
Framer X For Design - 5 Reasons Why I Switched
As a developer turned designer, I have always been fascinated with ways to close the gap between design and development. Recently, I stumbled upon Fra
Build your UX Portfolio from Scratch – Choosing a Web Stack
Choosing to hand-code your UX portfolio can be an ambitious, yet daunting task. Your portfolio website is perhaps the most important avenue to display
Build your UX Portfolio From Scratch – Design
Designing your own UX portfolio can give you an edge to stand out from the crowd. By choosing to design it yourself, it is an opportunity to showcase
Build your UX Portfolio From Scratch – Getting Started
Our UX portfolio is a key piece of displaying our capabilities as a designer. Hence, it becomes essential to make one that can speak for you. In this
Android Pagination Tutorial – Adding Swipe-to-Refresh
Swipe-to-Refresh is a popular way of refreshing data. In part 5 of the Android pagination tutorial, I will show you how to implement Swipe-to-Refresh.
How To Design A Great Mobile App Intro By Learning From The Best
The App Intro or Product Tour is an introductory welcome experience for first-time users to your product. In this article, we will look at how to desi
Android Pagination Tutorial—Handling Multiple View Types
Pagination is also known as endless or infinite scrolling. This is achieved using RecyclerView. In this tutorial, I’ll show you how to paginate when m
Use Empty States to your Advantage - Better User Retention
Empty States are often neglected and designed last. I don’t blame you though. After all, compared to the main screens, these aren’t important. Right?
Customize Color with Styled Google Maps in Android
You can now style and customize your Google Maps colors and more. In this Android tutorial, let’s see how we can do that in our apps. Google Maps has
Android O Tutorial: Supporting Picture-in-Picture (PIP)
Picture in Picture or PIP is a feature famously seen on YouTube and Android TV apps. It minimizes your content (typically video), keeping it pinned to
Mega Guide to Android's Material Design Components
Material Components are a set of UI components that helps you build Android apps with Material Design. In this post, I'll cover every Material Design
Android Architecture Components Tutorial - Room, LiveData and ViewModel
During the concluded Google I/O 2017, there were some amazing announcements about Android. Say hello to Android Architecture Components. For once, the
Horizontal Scrolling Lists in Mobile - Best Practices
Many Android and iOS apps have horizontal scrolling lists. Maybe it’s also combined inside a vertical list. But is it necessary? Even assuming it is,
Android Image Gallery App: Using Gestures and Transition
In this post, we'll look at creating a Material Design style, image Gallery app for Android. It will support image gestures like zoom, as well as shar
Design Techniques to Display Text over Background Images
It's become popular to overlay text labels on background images. But the image could be anything. How does your user interface design accommodate that
Android O Tutorial: Using Custom Font Resources
One of the new features in Android O is using Custom Font Resources. In this Android Tutorial, let’s see how to use them in our apps. The first Androi
Android O Preview: What Developers Need to Know
The Android O SDK (API 26) dropped recently and the internet went nuts! The Developer Preview SDKs brought along many new features. But these new SDKs
Introduction to Google's Awareness API
A while ago, Google announced something really interesting called the Awareness API. According to Google Developers(https://developers.google.com/) -
Stop Using Loading Spinner, There’s Something Better
Stop using those boring loading spinners in your user interfaces. Seriously. It's killing your apps' experience more than you know. A loading spinner
Android App shortcuts - How and When to use them
App Shortcuts were introduced Android Nougat 7.1. They allow you to access primary actions of your app directly from the launcher icon. You can also p
Using Bottom Navigation View - Android Design Support Library
_This tutorial is now updated for AndroidX!_ Android Bottom Bar (Bottom Navigation View) was officially added in Design Support Library v25. Bottom Ba
Material Design Snackbar in Android - How and When to Use
Snackbar was introduced in Material Design. It is available via the Design Support Library. Code-wise, it is similar to a Toast. In this article, we’l
Android Pagination: Error Handling
Endless or Infinite scrolling is called pagination. You do this in Android using RecyclerView. However, there are a few critical error scenarios to ha
Android Pagination: Using APIs with Retrofit and Gson
Let's look at Android Pagination with RecyclerView, using real data from an API. This will give us a better understanding of Pagination. First, we'll
Pagination Android Tutorial with RecyclerView: Getting Started
Pagination (Endless Scrolling or Infinite Scrolling) is a feature common in content-heavy apps. It breaks down a list of content into equal smaller pi
Material Design Onboarding in Android- Quickstart (Tap Target)
There are 3 Material Design Onboarding models in Android. In this tutorial, we'll learn about using the Quickstart model using TapTarget library. This
DayNight Theme Android Tutorial with Example
The DayNight Theme was added to AppCompat with the realease of Support Library v23.2.0(http://android-developers.blogspot.in/2016/02/android-support-l
Implement Parcelable to Bundle your POJOs
Every Android Developer is familiar with passing data via a Bundle or Intent. In doing so, you would have wanted to pass your entire POJO (Plain Old J
RecyclerView Adapter in Android, made Fast and Easy
Every time we think of creating a RecyclerView, we dread the amount of code that must go into the adapter. Also, if that adapter has many ViewHolders,
Prepare your apps for Multi-Window in Android N
Android 7 Nougat introduced Multi-Window, a new feature that enables multi-tasking. In this post, let's make or Android apps Multi-Window compatible.
People API Android Tutorial - Part 1
Imagine having access to your contacts including data about them and their connections, via a single API? Combine the Contacts API and Google+ API and
People API Android Tutorial – Part 2
Let's look at using the People API in our Android app. We will see how it allows us to pull data from contacts, as well as data from their G+ profiles
Bottom Navigation Bar Android Tutorial
One of the newest additions to the Material Design is the Bottom Navigation Bar. Its like the TabBar you see on iOS, and similar in functionality too.
Bottom Sheet with Android Design Support Library
Version 23.2 of the Android Support library is a huge update. The Design Support Library made Material Design easy. The new update made it a step easi
Android SQLite Database Tutorial with Sugar ORM
SQLite database is one way to store your app’s data locally in Android. In this Android SQLite Database tutorial, I’m here to show you an easier way t
Swipe to Dismiss for RecyclerView with ItemTouchHelper
A hidden gem in Android Support Library, is the built in Swipe to Dismiss functionality. Using the ItemTouchHelper(http://developer.android.com/refere
Onboarding with Android ViewPager: The Google Way
In this tutorial, learn to create an onboarding experience for your apps with Android ViewPager. Similar to the product tour app intro in Google Drive
Runtime Permissions - Android Marshmallow Tutorial
Runtime Permissions is a new permission model introduced in Android Marshmallow 6.0. Users are able to grant permissions during the app's runtime, rat
Google Chrome Custom Tabs Android Tutorial
Android Marshmallow introduced Chrome Custom Tabs. This allows us to load Web URLs natively from within our app. It leads to a more faster experience,
How to create an Image Gallery App with Glide - Android Tutorial
Let’s look at how fast we can create a simple image gallery app in Android using Glide. An image loading and caching library which takes care of almos
Using Vector Assets for Icons in Android Studio 1.4
Since Android Studio 1.4, we can use Vector Assets which was earlier restricted to Lollipop alone. This is more efficient since one drawable which req
Parallax Scrolling Tabs with Android Design Support Library
Material Design has seen the rise in on-scroll animations in Android apps. Certain designs include a parallax scroll effect with a header images, alon
Material Design for Tablets
So far we've seen use cases for popular design patterns restricted to a handset only. Now let's look at applying Material Design for Tablets in Androi
Overlap a Transparent Status Bar
There's a lot going on about making your Status Bar transparent for your Activities. But most of the time, its easier said than done and if android:fi
Create Gmail Style List in Android
I'm sure all of you would have noticed the list style in the Gmail app for Android. The placeholder for a person's photo is their first letter accente
My Experience with the Moto G 3rd Gen
I was looking to get a new phone for a while and wasn't sure what to get. I heard rumors about the Moto G 3rd gen (Moto G3), and decided to wait. The
Make an Android Splash Screen (Launch Screen)
The launch screen (or splash screen if you prefer), is the first thing your user's going to see. In other words, it is a user's first experience of yo
Pinterest Masonry Layout (Staggered Grid)
If you have used the Pinterest app or their website, you would have noticed a rather creative grid layout. That is a Masonry Layout. > It works by pla
Top 10 Material Design Libraries for Android
Material Design is all the rage now. Here are top 10 libraries you need to provide a complete Material Design experience across all apps, pre Lollipop