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Google’s Material Design for Android- Trends You Must Follow in 2016

Material Design is a Latest design language developed by Google. Material Design makes more liberal use of grid-based layouts, responsive animations and transitions, padding, and depth effects such as lighting and shadow.

Material Design is a Google’s conceptual design philosophy that outlines how apps should look and work on mobile devices. It breaks down everything — such as animation, style, layout- and gives guidance on patterns, components and usability.  According to Google: “We challenged ourselves to create a visual language for our users that synthesizes the classic principles of good design with the innovation and possibility of technology and science. This is material design.”

Material starts with mobile but extends to any other device. It is rooted in a few principles:

Realistic visual cues: The design is grounded in reality and actually inspired by design with paper and ink.
Bold, graphic and intentional: Fundamental design techniques drive the visuals. Typography, grids, space, scale, color and imagery guide the entire design. Elements live in defined spaces with a clear hierarchy. Color and type choices are bold and deliberate.
Motion provides meaning: Animation is a key component of Material Design, but it can’t just be there for the sake of movement. Animations need to happen in a single environment, serve to focus the design and include simple and easy transitions. Movements and actions should mirror the physical world.

Few points we need to understand about Material Design:

Understanding the “Tactile Surface”
One of the things that comes up a lot when talking about layered interfaces is the “tactile surface.

Think of this as having multiple sheets of paper that are stacked together to create a framework for how everything within the design works. These sheets are a little different from physical sheets of paper in that they can change shape and form — such as stretch or bend — but work in a way that is seemingly realistic.

As explained in Mobile Design Trends for 2015, treat the tactile surface is a container for content and information. The container is flat in design but has a faint shadow to separate it from other containers and layers. Other techniques to create separation between layers – such as textures, gradients or strokes – are unnecessary.Material Design-infographicYou can see the separation in the layers for the Reddit app, above. There is an obvious top menu layer covering a greyed out main content layer. Even the main header image contains elements of layering and shading that emphasize a three-dimensional tactile surface.

As demonstrated in the Android Lollipop UI Kit, a tactile surface clearly established the relationship and function of content within a design. (Each container often has one job, such as a link or video player.) This approach also establishes depth, as elements in other containers are layered, creating a seemingly three-dimensional world.

Material is Made for Adaptive Design:
Layered interfaces
are inherently made for adaptive design. All of the design guidelines actually encourage a designer to work with an adaptive layout (whether you prefer Adaptive or responsive is up for debate, however.)

When thinking about layered interfaces, it is important to consider how all the elements relate to one another.

Google recommends its standards because of a “flexible grid that ensures consistency across layouts, breakpoint details about how content reflows on different screens, and a description of how an app can scale from small to extra-large screens.”

Considerations include:

Breakpoints: Widths include 480, 600, 840, 960, 1280, 1440 and 1600 pixels.
Grid: 12-column layout with margins and gutters (8, 16, 24, or 40 pixels) and a baseline grid.
Surface behaviors: UI adapts to the type of screen so that surfaces are visible or toggled to hide.
Patterns: Function is based on screen size, including reveal, transform, expand, reflow and divide.

These considerations make it easy for designers to ensure their interfaces adapt for any device in any situation. They provide a baseline to help designers as they construct layouts for desktop, tablet and smartphone.

Material and Other Mobile Design Trends:
When it comes to creating layered interfaces, other trends also come into play.

  • Material Design has borrowed plenty of design concepts from the flat aesthetic and other trendy techniques. In fact, some would argue that Material Design is a close cousin to Flat Design 2.0 because many of the visual treatments are quite similar.
  • What separate layered interfaces from totally flat design is that effects are needed to create more three-dimensional spaces and to mimic lighting. In essence, designers are bringing back some of the design tricks eliminated with flat. The difference is that they’re using these tricks to improve usability rather than simply as decorative accents.
  • The colors most closely associated with layered interface design nearly fall within the flat aesthetic. The big difference is the vast number of color options that Google provides. Palette options are in the same vein though – bright, bold and fully-saturated hues.
  • While many designers opted for blues and reds when it comes to designing flat, more layered interfaces seem to feature deep purples and yellows. That’s likely because each of these hues is easy to pair with contrasting white or black text.
  • Layered interfaces also work well in the space of minimalism, particularly when it comes to typography. Type is stacked with clear hierarchy and sans serif options are the preferred choice. Google suggests using Roboto as the dominant typeface and it comes with plenty of choices, from thin to bold to italic to condensed.
  • The variety helps create levels of type that guide users between elements. In the true spirit of minimalism, one font can pretty much do everything you need with proper sizing and scaling.
  • You’d be hard-pressed to find a website without a full-screen image these days and layered interfaces further emphasize the use of vivid, intentional imagery.
  • The apps make the most of a simple photo for this very purpose, showing that Material Design  does not just use color, photos  and effects solely for visual impact — they are an essential part of the design.
  • Finally, layered interfaces are perfectly made for cards, which we discussed in the previous chapter. Looking through the examples showcased, almost every design includes something with a card-like element. From smaller cards to full-screen options, these trends go hand-in-hand.

Material Design looks nice and it works well in a variety of places. Designers will want to take advantage of that and the lite version provides the perfect level of guidance. Material Design Lite is also a good tool for designers and developers that want to create a unified web-app experience, so that apps look, feel and function in the same way regardless of device. Layers are definitely going to stick around, but the overall look may be a little more “layered” and a little less material, so that the design falls somewhere between Material Lite and iOS standards.Material Design 2The Weather Channel iOS app is already using this approach. The app layers cards, colors and images. Where the design concepts overlap most is in the use of cards and the placement of geometric shapes. Where the design is “less Material” is in the lack of depth and shadowing so that the overall look is flatter and streamlined.

Gradients and monochromatic color layers are another way layered interfaces can continue to grow visually. Monochromatic color palettes are a classic design technique that make it easy to create sharp elements to fit almost any type of content.

The Elevate iOS app uses a gradient background with multiple levels of cards in its design. The animations and movements are very Material Design in nature but the use of a gradient is not. This simple evolution highlights how designers will start to break the visual rules of layered interfaces while continuing to leverage its more functional aspects.

Designers will continue to evolve layered interfaces and Material Design concepts with darker colors and hues. Most of the apps available right now feature light and white color schemes, but darker colors will start to emerge. Weather Timeline is a perfect example of this. The simple change to the color palette is enough to really make this app stand out from all the others available. It still uses a style that’s distinctly layered, but the darker interface is simple and elegant. The colors for the entire design are less saturated and toned to match the darker aesthetic.

Today’s layered interfaces are just the start. The simple visual style and high usability of this design style will continue to emerge and grow as designers — not just for Android — will latch on the concepts. What may be even more interesting is that the look of layered interfaces is really just an extension of a lot of the design techniques that have been growing in popularity for several years, including flat and minimalism.

At some point the pendulum may swing back to more “realistic-looking” interfaces, but until then this concept appears to have quite the foothold.

Mantra Labs deep dives into latest trends and innovations in the Web, Mobile, Enterprise and Internet of Things space. The insights generated from these studies helps us provide more value for our clients.

Guest written by P. Sudhakar, our ace Design Lead.

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Empowering Frontline Healthcare Sales Teams with Mobile-First Tools

In healthcare, field sales is more than just hitting quotas—it’s about navigating a complex stakeholder ecosystem that spans hospitals, clinics, diagnostics labs, and pharmacies. Reps are expected to juggle compliance, education, and relationship-building—all on the move.

But, traditional systems can’t keep up. 

Only 28% of a rep’s time is spent selling; the rest is lost to administrative tasks, CRM updates, and fragmented workflows.

Salesforce, State of Sales 2024

This is where mobile-first sales apps in healthcare are changing the game—empowering sales teams to work smarter, faster, and more compliantly.

The Real Challenges in Traditional Field Sales

Despite their scale, many healthcare sales teams still rely on outdated tools that drag down performance:

  • Paper-based reporting: Slows down data consolidation and misses real-time insights
  • Siloed CRMs: Fragmented systems lead to broken workflows

According to a study by HubSpot, 32% of reps spend at least an hour per day just entering data into CRMs.

  • Managing Visits: Visits require planning, which may involve a lot of stress since doctors have a busy schedule, making it difficult for sales reps to meet them.
  • Inconsistent feedback loops: Managers struggle to coach and support reps effectively
  • Compliance gaps: Manual processes are audit-heavy and unreliable

These issues don’t just affect productivity—they erode trust, delay decisions, and increase revenue leakage.

What a Mobile-First Sales App in Healthcare Should Deliver

According to Deloitte’s 2025 Global Healthcare Executive Outlook, organizations are prioritizing digital tools to reduce burnout, drive efficiency, and enable real-time collaboration. A mobile-first sales app in healthcare is a critical part of this shift—especially for hybrid field teams dealing with fragmented systems and growing compliance demands.

Core Features of a Mobile-First Sales App in Healthcare

1. Smart Visit Planning & Route Optimization

Field reps can plan high-impact visits, reduce travel time, and log interactions efficiently. Geo-tagged entries ensure field activity transparency.

2. In-App KYC & E-Detailing

According to Viseven, over 60% of HCPs prefer on-demand digital content over live rep interactions, and self-detailing can increase engagement up to 3x compared to traditional methods.
By enabling self-detailing within the mobile app, reps can deliver compliance-approved content, enable interactive, personalized detailing during or after HCP visits, and give HCPs control over when and how they engage.

3. Real-Time Escalation & Commission Tracking

Track escalation tickets and incentive eligibility on the go, reducing back-and-forth and improving rep satisfaction.

4. Centralized Knowledge Hub

Push product updates, training videos, and compliance checklists—directly to reps’ devices. Maintain alignment across distributed teams. 

5. Live Dashboards for Performance Tracking

Sales leaders can view territory-wise performance, rep productivity, and engagement trends instantly, enabling proactive decision-making.

Case in Point: Digitizing Sales for a Leading Pharma Firm

Mantra Labs partnered with a top Indian pharma firm to streamline pharmacy workflows inside their ecosystem. 

The Challenge:

  • Pharmacists were struggling with operational inefficiencies that directly impacted patient care and satisfaction. 
  • Delays in prescription fulfillment were becoming increasingly common due to a lack of real-time inventory visibility and manual processing bottlenecks. 
  • Critical stock-out alerts were either missed or delayed, leading to unavailability of essential medicines when needed. 
  • Additionally, communication gaps between pharmacists and prescribing doctors led to frequent clarifications, rework, and slow turnaround times—affecting both speed and accuracy in dispensing medication. 

These challenges not only disrupted the pharmacy workflow but also created a ripple effect across the wider care delivery ecosystem.

Our Solution:

We designed a custom digital pharmacy module with:

  • Inventory Management: Centralized tracking of sales, purchases, returns, and expiry alerts
  • Revenue Snapshot: Real-time tracking of dues, payments, and cash flow
  • ShortBook Dashboard: Stock views by medicine, distributor, and manufacturer
  • Smart Reporting: Instant downloadable reports for accounts, stock, and sales

Business Impact:

  • 2x faster prescription fulfillment, reducing wait times and improving patient experience
  • 27% reduction in stock-out incidents through real-time alerts and inventory visibility
  • 81% reduction in manual errors, thanks to automation and real-time dashboards
  • Streamlined doctor-pharmacy coordination, leading to fewer clarifications and faster dispensing

Integration Is Key

A mobile-first sales app in healthcare is as strong as the ecosystem it fits into. Mantra Labs ensures seamless integration with:

  • CRM systems for lead and pipeline tracking
  • HRMS for leave, attendance, and performance sync
  • LMS to deliver ongoing training
  • Product Catalogs to support detailing and onboarding

Ready to Empower Your Sales Teams?

From lead capture to conversion, Mantra Labs helps you automate, streamline, and accelerate every step of the sales journey. 

Whether you’re managing field agents, handling complex product configurations, or tracking customer interactions — we bring the tech & domain expertise to cut manual effort and boost productivity.

Let’s simplify your sales workflows. Book a quick call.

Further Reading: How Smarter Sales Apps Are Reinventing the Frontlines of Insurance Distribution

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