What you need to know
- Google has announced the 2019 Material Design Award winners.
- Material Design awards honor the apps that adapt the design system in truly unique ways.
- This year, winners were chosen across four categories – theming, innovation, experience, and universality.
Since 2015, Google has been recognizing apps that apply the company's Material Design in unique ways to create an engaging user experience. This year, Google chose four apps that creatively used the design system across four different categories – theming, innovation, experience, and universality.
Theming: Ruff
Ruff, an app designed for writing on the go, was chosen as the winner in the Theming category for making great use of Material Design components, including the bottom sheet and backdrop. The app's floating action button and monospaced font take a refined approach to theming. Users are also given the option to customize type size and choose between a light, dark, or black theme.
Innovation: Reflectly
Intelligent journal app Reflectly won the Material Design award under the Innovation category for demonstrating "ability to build upon and extend the Material Design system in inspiring new directions." The app offers an AI-powered UI that helps individuals manage stress and anxiety by encouraging the practice of daily journaling with prompts. Reflectly's interface includes motion choreography, elevation adjustments, and state changes to deliver a great user experience.
Experience: Scripts
Scripts, an app that lets users learn how to read and write alphabets in various languages, was the winner of the Material Design award under the Experience category. As per Google's blog post, the app won the award for its "creative and effective deployment of interaction, navigation, and content in service of an impactful user experience."
Universality: Trip.com
Trip.com was chosen as the winner under the Universality category for its "thoughtful and inclusive design tailored to the needs of a wide range of users." The app, which was created to provide an excellent travel-booking experience to users across the globe, has strong visual hierarchy and support for 19 languages.
