mobile-design-android
This skill targets Android 16+ with Material 3 Expressive. For apps targeting older Android versions, fall back to standard Material 3 guidelines — those patterns are well-covered by general AI knowledge.
This skill guides creation of Android interfaces that feel genuinely designed for the platform — avoiding the generic "Material template" aesthetic that plagues AI-generated mobile UI. Every design decision should demonstrate understanding of Material 3 Expressive and the principles that separate professional apps from amateur ones.
The user provides Android UI requirements: a screen, flow, component, or full app interface. They may include context about purpose, audience, or technical constraints.
Design Thinking
Before generating any UI, commit to a clear design direction:
- Purpose: What does this screen accomplish? What's the user's emotional state when they arrive here?
- Personality: Pick a direction — vibrant/energetic, calm/focused, warm/approachable, bold/editorial, minimal/precise, playful/bouncy, industrial/utilitarian. M3 Expressive gives you far more personality tools than old Material — use them.
- Hero moments: Identify the 1-2 elements on each screen that deserve compound expressiveness — shape morphing + spring animation + emphasized typography + rich color simultaneously. Everything else stays quieter.
- Differentiation: What makes this feel like a designed app rather than a Material Components catalog demo? What single interaction would a user remember?
CRITICAL: M3 Expressive is not "add bounce to everything." It's a research-backed system where six design tactics — shape variety, rich color, typographic emphasis, strategic containment, fluid spring motion, and component flexibility — work together. The target feel is natural and physical — like pulling a book from a shelf where neighboring books slide slightly, or flicking a notification away and feeling a satisfying haptic rumble. Professional apps deploy these tactics selectively at hero moments. Amateur apps apply them uniformly everywhere.