Practicing android design metrics?

Question

Reading the design guidelines. I came across a little issue while trying to practice the metrics:

As secified above, we should add a 4dp margin to the top and bottom of button elements and text input fields. But those elements already has a margin specified by the drawables, which makes the guidelines kind of invalid.

Even though padding and margin is specied as 0dp in the example below, we still get a margin:

Should i specify my own button drawables, or how do i solve this issue?

Answer 1

It doesn't make guide invalid. They already counted on all padding/margins when they wrote recommendations. This is something like advice (it´s not mandatory), which means:

• App will look like most of other apps in design manner (considering most of developers will follow guidance, which they do)
• User will easier walk around screens, easier find what he/she need to see or do.
• UI will look more "natural" and intuitive to him/her

I think their design teams put a lot of effort to make guide valid and useful. So my advice is try to follow it as much as you can, to provide better user experience. Don't care about this details..

Hope it helps.. Cheers ;)

p.s. Enjoy Android wonderland