Android 16’s Huge Visual Redesign Is Definitely Funky, but Is It More Usable?

I think we can all agree that our smartphone software—iOS and Android—has become stale. The systems are functional but boring, which they kind of have to be for billions of collective users to know how to use them without needing to pull out a manual every five seconds. But the design pendulum—for Android, at least—is finally swinging away from digital minimalism and toward a louder and more graphic design-y user interface.

Announced today ahead of next week’s annual Google I/O developer conference, the new “Material 3 Expressive” design language for Android 16 and Wear OS is the most opinionated take on Android that Google has put out. But will it tempt iPhone users over or further turn existing Android users away?

We got an early glimpse of the Material 3 Expressive design language a week ago when Google “accidentally” published a blog post about it, but now we’ve seen some short videos and GIFs of the new Android 16 and Wear OS in action—and it certainly looks refreshing. Beyond the bolder colors and fonts, Android seems more organic and bouncier. As a lover of graphic design, I’m tickled by the new visual direction. I already took a fancy to Google’s first attempt at making Android more “expressive” with Material You in Android 12. The greater customizations, typefaces, and even the squiggly lines in places like the media player controls really broke free from iOS’s monotony. Material 3 Expressive seems to take Android’s design to its natural next evolution.

I have my concerns about usability, though. While Google says Material 3 Expressive was born from research studies conducted over the past three years that took note of factors such as “where users focused their attention” and their “emotional responses to different designs,” how general users in the real world take to the Android refresh may be different. The intention and research may have shown that people prefer larger buttons and a new floating toolbar, but I could see many users also looking at Material 3 Expressive and feeling it’s cluttered and more difficult to discern what is a button and what isn’t. Google says its research showed the opposite, that changes like a significantly larger “Send” button in a message or email app lead to users spotting it “four times faster.”

Recall how futuristic and fresh Microsoft’s tile-based “Metro UI,” which actually started on the Zune, seemed to differentiate Windows Phone and Windows 8 from iOS and Android. Even today, Metro UI holds up. But despite a clean and seemingly intuitive UI and UX, consumers actually found it confusing and difficult to operate. Overly flourished software designs at the expense of usability rarely resonate with users.

There are some smaller changes that aren’t entirely visual. Like the Live Updates feature, which shows bite-sized real-time information, similar to what you get on iOS and iPhones with the Dynamic Island. One example Google shared was checking the arrival time for an Uber Eats delivery. Another small tweak: a more dynamic blur effect when pulling down the notification shade from the top of your phone.

Weirdly, Material 3 Expressive looks the best on Wear OS, Google’s smartwatch platform. Whereas it’s always felt like Wear OS was a UI made for square screens shoved into mostly round smartwatches like the Pixel Watch 3 and OnePlus Watch 3, Material 3 Expressive’s rounded buttons and bubblier animations look more at home and fluid. I really dig it.

If Google sticks to its usual beta release, we should be able to try out the new Material 3 Expressive version of Android 16 and Wear OS in the coming weeks.