Elevate Your Android Home Screen: Understanding Google's Widget Quality Tiers
Discover how Google is categorizing Android widgets into quality tiers, encouraging developers to create more functional, visually appealing, and user-friendly widgets for a better homescreen experience.
By Blip Tech
2 min read
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:
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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.
