New ICQ, or as we received Editors' Choice

ICQ recently won the Editors' Choice nomination on Google Play. This nomination is perhaps the most significant in the story of those that go through manual moderation. We will try to tell you how we got the current “The New ICQ”, and what you should pay attention to if you also want to get the “Editors' Choice” badge on your application.

After the Google I / O conference last year, we immediately started implementing the material design in our application. After a long search, the task looked like this: “Completely change the navigation and pull on the new UI”. At that time, we could not imagine what the implementation of the new UI would cost us. We tried many ideas. Tried and placing tabs on the same line with the "hamburger", and navigation through the sidebar, and the screen with a bunch of buttons that cause modal windows inside. Navigation Drawer refused to navigate rather quickly, because they did not want to hide the main functions from users. Although I will not hide the fact that the absence of tabs in navigation would solve a lot of performance problems. But since there is no sidebar, we had to solve these problems in more cunning ways.


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Difficulties in the transition to the material design were mainly due to the fact that the product is in a cycle of continuous development. There is a clear development plan, involving permanent releases. And it was impossible just to take and stop the work, starting to rewrite the interface. Therefore, in parallel, the team has been developing a new design and current versions. Thanks to the transition to the material design, the application has become adaptive, and looks equally good on both the screens of smartphones and tablets. At first glance, everything is quite simple, but in reality it is not so. Some screens, which on the phone were full-screen activations, had to be redone into fragments for display on tablets. After all, there is no point in stretching the settings window of several points to full screen. Plus, the interface should have adequate behavior in portrait and landscape orientation. For example, in the Landscap, we see the chat list and chat at the same time, since there is a lot of space on the screen, and in the portrait we show one thing. If we turn a blind eye to the problem of the landscapescope, usability drops dramatically, especially with an open keyboard, as shown by the test results in our UX lab.

Now we can say that with the update of the interface, we hit the nail on the head. Thanks to the users, the rating grows all year round, and we promptly monitor the feedback.



In addition to the development of the operating system for our usual smartphones and tablets, Google is actively promoting its additional areas: Android Auto and Android Wear. We try to support all the new products, it is nice to be among the first in new technologies. In addition, Google pays attention to this and takes into account when choosing applications for features.

Although cars with Android Auto are only entering the market, and multimedia systems are sold in just a few countries, we have already implemented support for reading messages and voice response. Therefore, as soon as you purchase such a car, do not forget to install ICQ. Auto support has several subtleties, many of which are related to the lack of a real Headunit and debugging exclusively with the help of an emulator.

We also supported the smartwatch on Android Wear, where ICQ notifications and voice response in chat rooms are now working, which is undoubtedly a nice bonus.





Cherry on the cake was the integration of Palette in the user profile, now (carefully, too emotional text) profile looks just gorgeous! Using the Palette library, you can drag out contrast and accent colors from the loaded avatar and use them to draw fonts, backgrounds and toolbars. In the future, we plan to extend this solution to the chat screen. Chats, like profile, will become more personal.

Preparing for the release of Google's “Marshmallow”, we made support for Permissions, but as always the Android guys were a little wise, which made it difficult: the query always needs a GUI. And since the request and response itself is, in fact, startActivity and onActivityResult, in order to perform an action after turning the screen, you need to be able to save the state, have global id (separate actions for each call on different screens, for example, starting the camera from chat windows) and other crutches.

Well, now it's time to make a small summary of the above and try to highlight the key points for getting Editors' Choice on Google Play.

• Material design is our everything! Without beautiful views and layouts nowadays nowhere. But Google has gone much further in its concept. Open design.google.com and start designing.
• Development under MD is not a heavy burden and not a rent that you are required to pay by Google. This is a real chance to improve the usability of the application, especially for new users who are just becoming familiar with mobile interfaces.
• Users should like the application. Evaluation in the store is of great importance. For a stable growth of the assessment, it is necessary to interact deeply with the audience and try to solve the problems that arise.
• The last two years, Google has been actively trying to embed Android wherever possible. Try to have time to support Android Wear, Android Auto and tablets, until you had to design a UI for multicookers and toothbrushes.
• The most recent Target SDK. There is a double-edged sword: on the one hand, new features, on the other - new problems. Do not be afraid to report to Google developers and carry on a dialogue with them, otherwise morally prepare to increase the number of crutches in the application.
• A weighty argument and a good indicator of the readiness of an application for a nomination is to receive a feature in any other category, for example, in “New & Updated”.
• Editors' Choice is an international category, so be prepared to support as many localizations of your application as possible.
• The last but important recommendation: do not falsify data on the application or formally approach the above criteria. Ultimately, you are trying to deceive not the automated tests and review team, but the most ordinary user.

In conclusion, I will say that the time has passed when it was possible to say: “ICQ is no longer a cake”! New ICQ is a fresh and modern messenger:

• high quality video calls;
• audio calls;
• fast sending photos and files (up to 4 GB);
• convenient adaptive interface;
• grouped with a huge number of participants;
• themeization and personal settings;
• this is a completely new own VoIP engine;
• and much more.

Our team is fighting on advanced Android development, and our Target SDK version 23 is proof of that.