Elevate Your Android Home Screen: Understanding Google's Widget Quality Tiers

Android Widget Quality Tiers

Google has introduced quality tiers for Android widgets with the aim of helping developers create functional, visually appealing, and user-friendly widgets. The tiers are divided into three categories:

Tier 3: Low Quality

• Does not meet standard layout, color, discovery, and content criteria
• Poor user experience

Tier 2: Quality Standard

• Helpful, usable, and provides a quality experience
• Meets basic requirements for layout, color, discovery, and content

Tier 1: Differentiated

• Exemplary widgets offering hero experiences
• Personalized and help users create unique and productive homescreens

Key Criteria:

• Content:

  • Must not be consistently stale or untimely.
  • Must update after user actions or within the app.
  • Should allow manual refresh if frequent updates are expected.

• Layout:

  • Tier 2: Must touch at least two opposing edges of the launcher grid.
  • Tier 1: MUST hit all four edges of the bounds of the grid.
  • Widgets can have custom shapes but must meet edge requirements.

• Color:

  • Sufficient color contrast (Tier 2).
  • Advanced theming with light/dark modes, Dynamic Color, or branded theme colors (Tier 1).

• Discovery:

  • Accurate previews in the Widget picker.
  • User-content previews are ideal (e.g., actual profile/image for contacts widget).
  • Unique names and descriptions.

• System Coherence:

  • Rectangular widgets must use OEM-specific corner radii.
  • Encouragement of progress indicators and transition animations.