Stay organized with collections
Save and categorize content based on your preferences.
After you determine the top-level navigation tabs for your app, you must
consider the browsable content views and how they are organized.
Because car makers and Google take care of the content-view styling and the
browsing navigation, your only design task with respect to browsing is to plan
what’s in each view.
Specifically, you need to decide the following:
How many levels deep your content goes
How each top-level and lower-level browsing view will be formatted (grid or
list)
Whether the content in any browsing view will be grouped into subcategories
Whether you want to implement search within your app as an aid to browsing
(strongly recommended to make it easier for the app to be used in the car)
As you decide how to structure your content, remember that having fewer levels
is better, to minimize cognitive load on drivers. Grouping content into
subcategories within a browsing view (with subheaders) can help you to make
your hierarchy flatter.
If you choose to implement in-app search, you won’t need to design the voice
and keyboard search interface. Car makers design both the voice search
affordance and the keyboards. For details, visit
Supporting voice actions
and Displaying search results.
Browsing view examples
In this example, the designer uses a grid format to display music
albums (Android Auto).This example uses a list, showing a combination of playlists and
artists (Android Auto).This example uses a grid as well as a media control
bar (AAOS).This example uses a list as well as a media control
bar (AAOS).Two examples (list and grid) of media apps on AAOS
(portrait)
Browsing view requirements
Keep in mind the following requirements and recommendations:
Requirement level
Requirements
MUST
App developers must:
Provide subheader text if you decide to create subcategories within a browsing view
SHOULD
App developers should:
Avoid browsable content that extends more than three levels deep from the top level
Decide whether to implement an in-app search function
MAY
App developers may:
For each browsing view, determine whether to display content in a grid or in a list (list is the default)
Rationale
Avoid driver distraction: Minimize cognitive load required to browse
content.
Optimize content display: Use grid or list as appropriate for the content
category.
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