Big things are happening at Google, as rumors of many huge changes to the company’s current products have been swirling for months now. We’ve heard of a massive Gmail redesign, changes to the Android home screen, and more — having multiple sources say similar things lets us know that we are more than likely to soon experience dramatic changes from the Mountain View-based company. Today, we’re learning of a possible new design direction for Google, dubbed “Quantum Paper”.
Quantum Paper is allegedly the reason for the updated designs we’ve seen in recent Google leaks, including that of Project Hera. An overarching design ethos for Google moving into the future, Quantum is designed to make UI experiences consistent across the various platforms the company develops for. Said UI will be beautiful and “delight” users, reports Android Police.
To understand Quantum Paper, it’s critical to first understand “Polymer,” a toolkit used to design responsive websites demoed last year during the Google I/O 2013 keynote. Polymer gives a couple pre-designed building blocks to build sites, some of which line up with bits and pieces of possibly-upcoming Google app updates.
Polymer’s official website, built with the Polymer tools, uses the same header UI as what Quantum Paper is expected to bring (below).
Now that we know exactly what Polymer is, let’s head back to Quantum Paper (to be more specific, the expected UI). A couple new design elements are expected — a hamburger menu icon showing the rectangles out in the open (pictured above), a new search icon (also pictured), a pin toggle image, an icon to add new content, and an icon to denote clusters.
Quantum Paper is expected to be the Android arm of this Google design shift, but what of other platforms Google develops for, such as iOS? GoogleKit will allegedly be the name of the iOS framework, and while we don’t yet know whether Google will allow third-party developers to tap into it, it will try to stay consistent with its products within itself.
Quantum Paper will reportedly become official with the L-release of Android, which is expected to either bear the version number 4.5 or 5.0. Updates to existing apps reflecting the new design are expected to slowly trickle out leading up to the release, at which point Google will publish a Quantum Paper Spec, explaining the design and encouraging third-party developers to use it.
This truly does reflect a huge change in the land of Google, so needless to say we’re excited for what Google has up its sleeve. It’s possible, but unlikely, that we’ll hear more at Google I/O, which should be an interesting event indeed this year.
Any thoughts? Let us know what you think down in the comments.
Source: Android Police