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I'm designing an Android app for a client. Since it's confidential, I made up a similar scenario.

Background:

Say I'm designing a system to order pizza. One of the steps in this multi-step process is to choose a location where I want to pickup my pizza. So on the screen, I need to be able to select a location then go to the next step, or look at the details first (like directions to the location) before selecting the location.

Problem:

Usually to view details, the user would touch the item and drill down to the details. But I want to use the touch gesture to select the location since viewing details is secondary. So now I need another method to drill down to the details.

Possible Solutions:

I have two solutions but I don't know which is better, what's the standard or maybe there's a completely different that solution I haven't thought of.

Solution 1: User selects location then taps the details icon in the action bar.

Solution 2: User touches the information icon to the right of the item.

Mockup:

http://i.imgur.com/XIx9TCO.png

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    If I've to choose, Solution nr 2 is much easy to learn and more intuitive for Android users. Especially in light of Android Design Guidlines
    – Phil Mobile
    Jul 12, 2013 at 19:20
  • Are you stuck to using a list or are the locations close enough to use a map overlay in addition to a list?
    – William
    Jul 13, 2013 at 2:32
  • The locations list the last selected locations as well as local locations so they could be very far from each other. (Ex: One location is near the person's office, another could be near their house.)
    – mgpugne
    Jul 15, 2013 at 13:11

1 Answer 1

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Solution 1:
seems to be quite inapropriate from Design Guidelines perspective, ActionBar contains actions - not navigation, actions should affects whole ActivityScreen - no one of items. Unless you are in Edit Mode with ContextualActionBar
ActionBar - Android Guidelines

Solution 2:
it's fine, but more appropriate will be when user can touch whole area to see details and touch icon on a right to choose that location. Details under touch of whole area of cell is more intuitive for any content view actions. On the right you can use simple text "choose" instead of any icon - this will be nice call to action and much more clear for a user what to do..

enter image description here

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  • If navigation shouldn't be in the action bar, should the "NEXT" button be there? I originally put it there because I've seen "DONE" buttons in the action bar as well (more so for iOS). Gmail also has the "SEND" button in that location as well which I think is similar to "DONE".
    – mgpugne
    Jul 12, 2013 at 19:47
  • NEXT - is navigatin, but DONE/SEND - is action. iOS have very different UI patterns and Different Guidelines. It is impossible to do good Android app by just taking from iOS UX. Please read Android Design Guidelines and everything will be clear.
    – Phil Mobile
    Jul 12, 2013 at 20:02
  • Starting to get a bit off topic from the original question but how would you design the navigation for a multistep form where the next steps are dependent on the previous ones? (If this isn't the best place to ask the question, I'll post it as a new question.)
    – mgpugne
    Jul 12, 2013 at 20:07
  • To clarify, I have read the Android Design Guidelines. But they don't have a navigation structure that fits a multistep form very well. So that's why I came up with the "Next" button. So if there's a better way to do it, it'll help me a lot.
    – mgpugne
    Jul 12, 2013 at 20:47
  • Ok. Mobile app structure is ideally for multistep. You want user choose a location and then click "Next" button - it's more web behavior for me. Why just let user choose and automatically move him/her to next step (next screen)??
    – Phil Mobile
    Jul 15, 2013 at 8:52

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