Interactions in Material Design

Material Design, introduced by Google in 2014, had been my go-to place to reevaluate the design languages in my projects because of its use of metaphors from the physical world. The appearances and properties in the physical world, including how depths or layers are expressed through light and shadow to feedback that makes sense when interacting to physical objects, inspire rules of Material Design. In Material Design, graphics have to be intentional; motions have to guide users to focus on elements and reinforce how these elements will transform or reorganize as they are intended.

Navigational Gestures

Gestures help users to navigate between views, take actions, and manipulate content.

Navigational gestures are alternate ways for users to navigate through pages, which serve as supplements to navigational UI. The input can be tap, scroll and pan, drag, swipe, and pinch. In Material Design drag and pinch also can be a gesture to navigate between individual page elements, specifically to transit into detail pages from a list or collection view. In the example below, the left shows how a transition into the view helps to suggest how users may need to drag down to close the view.

Transition gives a trace of where elements come from and how to reach them (Source: Google Material Design — Interactions)

As if views and pages were physical objects, animations driven by gestures should communicate where the new information comes…