Working with the world’s greatest designers, Google has released their design bible, Material Design, a compilation of design principles to create user-friendly desktop, tablet and phone screens. Material Design will change the way we design, evaluate and use apps and websites forever, making onscreen experiences more intuitive, more consistent and even more accurate.

Did I mention it’s free?

Even if you don’t fancy yourself a UX or UI maven, you’ll gain perspective on a “…visual language that synthesizes the classic principles of good design with the innovation and possibility of technology and science.” That sounds a lot more ponderous than the web-based resource actually is — stylish graphics with well-written text and superb organization.

Anyone who makes decisions about websites, applications or even simple banner ads will benefit from this simple, easy-to-understand guide. Beyond making you a better judge of design, Google’s leadership in web design principles has benefits:

  • Best-practice solutions for design questions. Yes, there is almost always a best way to provide user interface for best user experience. It’s in the book.
  • Better rankings, perhaps, in search results. Makes sense that if you follow Google’s web design guides, you’re going to be easier to crawl and definitely responsive.
  • Mobile, tablet and desktop experiences are consistent and responsive, no matter the platform or device. No confusion, no clumsy conversion.
  • Material Design, introduced last year, has already become the industry standard. For example, the new ESPN desktop app or Buzzfeed’s Android app.
  • Multiple resources are dedicated to supporting Material Design, including com, ThemeForest, Polymer, and GitHub.
  • Do it right from the start. Whether your site or app is built for phone, tablet or 27” high-res monitor, it’ll be easy to use, responsive, user- and SEO-friendly and most importantly, look very state-of-the-art. Google’s committed to keeping Material Design up to date.
  • Bonus if you read this far: Roboto, Google’s new screen font, looks good on any size screen and is very easy to read. It’s free at download Roboto.

Thanks to Dave Polykoff’s item in Business2Community for details and background.