NewsUpcomingReviewsUnboxingTips & TricksAppsChromebooksChromecastGoogle AssistantAbout

Chrome Unboxed - The Latest Chrome OS News

A Space for All Things Chrome

Material Design: Chromebooks Get Another Makeover

By 9 Comments

by Gabriel Brangers
Filed under:

Google’s Material Design movement continues to evolve across platforms and Chrome OS is no exception. If you’re not familiar with Material Design, it is a Google-created design language based on the characteristics of real paper and ink.

The project is way more in-depth that just a face lift for mobile apps and web products. The intention is to create a unified design platform that implements a specific set of guidelines for developers creating product for Google’s ecosystem.




These new elements were initially applied to Google’s line of Android apps but have gradually begun to extend to other platforms. We have seen additions of Material Design here and there in Chrome OS. Recent updates to the Developer channel have brought us even more shiny new looks for Google’s desktop OS.

Extensions

The Extensions list has received a new look that better reflects the heart of Material Design. Check out what you can look forward to in this image.

The new look and layout certainly have a more Googly feel. I especially like the new toggle switches to enable/disable the extensions.




Chrome Apps

Chrome Apps have taken on the same “cards” style look. The toggle switch is still a mystery on this one. I would presume it will uninstall the app but when I toggled it the switch seemed to have no effect. Work in progress I suppose.

Additional MD Features

Chrome History, Bookmarks and the Chrome OS Feedback screen have all received a UI refresh.

Some of these features may have found their way to Beta already. The majority of them require the enabling of experimental flags. One thing we’ve learned is that the minute tweaks of Chrome OS can find themselves swimming upstream to the Stable channel apart from major updates. Keep an eye out for changes as Google continues to improve and reinvent Chrome OS.

  • Selden Deemer

    One of Apple’s traditional strengths has been a consistent user experience across multiple product lines, carried through decades of development. Microsoft and Google, not so much.

    Material Design seems to be Google’s (belated) effort to bring order out of chaos. I don’t always agree with everything that Matias Duarte comes up with, but some standardization across multiple products and platforms is long overdue, and generally an improvement. Google is slowly developing a coherent design ethos.

  • Mike

    it seems like they’re limiting the actual work the OS has to do for the UI so it can look faster.
    didn’t pastels go out in the ’90s? so few of the UI advances over the past 20 yrs but if it can recover from errors fast, who cares ? instead of forcing GPP (good programming practices) it’s shooting for the LCD (lowest common denominator) so the hacks can feel good about their “programming” – too many script kiddies, not enough that are really good.

    how long before the UI is truly functional enough that the UX is pleasant after doing real work? it just feels like we’re going back 30 years instead of forward. the hardware is phenom, why not the software?

    i guess those are my thoughts

  • CajunMoses

    I’m a GV user. The jazzy new GV (voice.google.com) look and feel seems to be a manifestation of material design. It’s really cool, but I prefer the old GV (google.com/voice) for the simple reason that it allows me to delete messages from storage whereas the new GV has eliminated that capability. I also tried the new Google Inbox but found myself just going back to Gmail. What I’m trying to say is that the new look and feel is great. But fairly significant changes in design need equally significant and functional testing based on actual user feedback, and that seems to be lacking. For example, you can read the Google Hangouts Help forum where dozens of users describe the same serious functional flaws with Google Hangouts for a year or more, and no one has bothered to fix or even address them. So they switch back to Skype.

  • Adrian

    I have a thought… could Google refine some of the issues with the Cloud Printing functions so the Chromebook could truly become an alternative to MS? These MD changes are cute and pretty, but fixing bugs should really get equal time, shouldn’t it?

    • Adrian, surprisingly (to me, anyway) the Cloud Print team is not part of the Chrome OS development team. There have been hints that locally attached USB printing may be supported in a future release of Chrome OS.

  • “when I toggled it the switch seemed to have no effect. Work in progress I suppose.”

    My guess would be it does what it always did – disables the apps, hiding it from the drawer, preventing notifications and running in the background (some apps do that and consume non trivial amounts of RAM).

  • Though I am excited for these improvements, the thing I am specifically interested in is Tablet mode improvements. If there is information out there, would you do an article focusing on this? I know 7.1.1 will be a big step toward this, but it is other things I’m wondering about. Here are my gripes with Tablet mode:

    – Power Button won’t put the device to sleep (changed in the dev channel)
    – Easier and more functional unlock methods (pin not working, I would like pattern unlock too)
    – On-screen keyboard is very basic and buggy. Getting GBoard working on ChromeOS would be MAJOR, but I would also like options to give more Desktop style functions (tab, ctrl, alt, keyboard shortcuts, ect…).
    – Bottom bar On-screen buttons for navigation. Preferably customizable.

  • Wow, Great article for design,