More helpful UI interactions for users, better metrics for developers
Gesture navigation utterly changed the way most of use our phones, and while it feels like a huge step forward from the hardware buttons of yore, there’s still plenty of room for improvement. Android 13 laid the foundations for a predictive back gesture, and now Android 14 could make life even better, showing you where the back gesture will redirect to.
On Android 13, this predictive support shows users a preview of the home screen when they’re about to navigate to it using the back gesture. A handful of Google apps support this relatively basic mode, including Google TV and the Phone app on Pixel phones.
During the Android Developer Summit this week, Google’s talking about how people still seem to miss this warning and exit apps by accident, skewing app metrics for developers — a phenomenon called falsing (via 9to5Google). As part of the Platform Track live stream, the company explained that although the back gesture is an ergonomic interaction model, it would be much more helpful to also show users a preview of the screen they’ll land on as they follow through with the gesture, even when that isn’t the launcher’s default screen.
Taking the Google Calendar example Google used on stage, predictive back in Android 14 could show you the app’s schedule view as you swipe back from an open event page. Developers have the freedom of using custom animations to show this preview, but they must also tweak the app manifest to specify how apps are going to handle back gestures, instead of leaving the Android system in charge.
Google says this new, more informative back navigation experience is landing with Android 14 in 2023, along with some of the other helpful new features we look forward to.
