Use material design to match design of other Android apps

[guushoekman]

Functionality wise I think the app is fine, but I think it could benefit greatly from using Material Design.

Matching the design of other Android apps will make it easier to use, especially for new users. It's also simply prettier and I think aesthetics is an important factor for users when they decide to try / keep using an app.

I'm happy to help with this if there is interest. I have front-end experience though not for apps. Would be a nice project to learn though.

[bparmentier]

Sure, Material Design would be great! It's been a long time I didn't work on OpenBikeSharing so I would have to update some stuff first to be aligned with the latest versions of the libraries used and the new UI-related classes.

I was also thinking about changing the main screen of the app. Should it be focused on the map instead of the list(s) of stations? And having three tabs with the same data simply filtered differently, as it is now, is wrong IMO.

If you have ideas, please bring them in!

[guushoekman]

That's great! I'm keen to help out.

I've been looking around and downloaded a dedicated app for the bike sharing system in Valencia that can serve as some inspiration.

I think it would make sense to have the map and favourites as tabs. Maybe the nearby tab is useful too, but it doesn't work for me so I don't know what it looks like.

This is what the the Valenbisi app looks like. It initially shows the map and when you click on a station it zooms in on it and gives extra information:

The second tab is the favourites. It quite like the fact you can interact with the station from that tab. You can refresh it, you can start directions to it, etc. Since users probably won't have that many favourites, I think it's fine to dedicate a card to each favourite.

The third tab in that app is filled with tweets, which I don't really see the point of to be honest.

The third tab in OpenBikeSharing is a list of all stations, but I'm trying to think when that would be useful. I think a user will either want to use the map or use the search to find the station they're interested in. I'm not sure if a long list really adds anything.

Can I also recommend using a nicer basemap? The Carto basemaps allow for 75,000 mapviews per month for free, for example. I have no idea what the usage is like, but that might be worth adding as an option. People can also get a free API key if usage is high. I realise this sounds trivial, but if the initial view of the app will be the map then it's basically people's introduction to OpenBikeSharing and I think it's important it looks modern.

I can see this discussion going way outside of the scope of this issue, but it's your repo so please organise things how you like it to be.

Keen to hear your thoughts!

[guushoekman]

Any thoughts on this @bparmentier?