are there design conventions for layouts on larger layouts? I feel like this is a question few have asked.
A lot of android layouts don’t look good on larger screens, or the user experience doesn’t translate so seamlessly.
A critique of android apps is that they just stretch on large screens, but don’t have any design considerations for them.
Is there a resource that details how a user might want to make their layout-large xml file, if their default layout xml file includes a listview, for instance. On the mobile experience, a listview with just text will be fine, where on the larger screen experience, the listview by itself doesn’t look too good.
I would like to add extra layout files, but I don’t have any reference on what they should look like, or even in the planning design phases of an app, I don’t have any reference on how it ought to be designed so that other screen sizes can be incorporated.
Mainly looking for a resource that addresses these issues. Like maybe a blog post that goes into detail about this. Google’s tablet design guidelines were a helpful start too.
Insight appreciated
Perhaps these resources will help you out. I would make the general statement that probably the most common technique for adapting layouts from handset to tablet is making tablet layouts multi-pane. You mentioned that you already perused through the Google design guide, but I figured I’d highlight the one page that talks specifically about this:
Android Design: Multi-Pane Layouts
The general concept is that information you would have presented on multiple screens on the handset (e.g. the list of items, followed by the view to display the selection) can be brought together on the same screen on a tablet (so the list now sits side-by-side with the view of the current selection). You mentioned already how the resource framework assists in selecting the proper layout; on the code side Fragments are intended to assist with modularizing the code that goes along with the view as well.
Another resource that may be of use is from Googler Kirill Grouchnikov. He has a series of blog posts dealing with Google Play as a case study and how conceptually the UI was broken up to work between the handset and tablet:
Responsive Mobile Design
Hope that Helps!