I’ve had 2 successful websites that not only drove sales on one but traffic on another. I am also the SEO manager at a company in the UK. I can tell you in my experience not all Animations and UI are relevant for a GOOD User Experience.

While using some animations can drive a user to a sales funnel, some animations can be irrelevant and/or bad for the page.

Animations distract the eye from the target. Unless the animation surrounds a sales funnel area or focuses the user straight to the target area of the page, people want to find what they were looking for!

Of course the user ALSO wants a clean looking website as that would also make for a good user experience, being able to find the relevant information straight away.

See the Amazon.com frontpage. Everything’s clean, the only animations come from the slider which is where they want us to look first.

This is also why adverts can be detrimental to user experience unless they’re actually interested in the advert. They’ve come to the answer they were looking for originally and get slightly distracted by something else. Then they slightly lose thought. But adverts can be a nice source of income if used properly.

I also put it in the context of video games. The three best selling video games are Minecraft, Grand Theft Auto V, and Tetris. 2 of these games aren’t the cleanest to the eye, but they sell because of the game itself.

The short answer is “A Lot". These are called micro animarions which almost every UX and UI designers are thinking of and practicing. Micro animations have a good impact on users for 2 reasons

1. As the name specifies they are tiny, so they are not larger than life kinda animations, so they are cute and easily attract the attention of the eye
2. The most important aspect of micro animations is, the users feel they owned the experience and the device is responding more interactively than they expected. It also gives an arosal of senses about the application if the micro animation makes them surprisingly happy. Having said that, where we are going to plan these animations is crucial.

Used in the right place and right way, it has a very good positive impact on end users.

If the app is only going to be on that particular target device, it would make sense to design for Ice Cream Sandwich. However if you do intend for expand to other phones, planning for Gingerbread is a must. It currently has way over 50% of the market in Android phones:

Additionally, barring some unforseen event, it doesn't look like Gingerbread will be going away anytime soon.

The Galaxy Nexus is the first device to sport Android 4.0 aka Ice Cream Sandwich.

Others phones will recieve ICS in the upcoming months, first with Google's previous flagship phone: Google Nexus S, which should recieve ICS shortly. My guess would be before the end of this year but perhaps next week on December 16th -- which marks the Nexus S' one year anniversary.

Other vendors, specifically Motorola and Sony have said they will upgrade their phones to the ICS platform in the "upcoming months".

However, as Joe Miller pointed out, several developers have taken the ICS source code and have compiled ICS for several devices. I, myself have been using ICS on my Nexus S for about 2 weeks with some help from the people at XDA-Forums.

SOURCE: http://www.intomobile.com/2011/12/07/motorola-lays-out-ice-cream-sandwich-update-path/

Yes. it is worth upgrading to Icecream Sandwich if you have a phone that can run ICS without any lag. ICS is better than gingerbread in:

1. Better notification center
2. Better User Interface
3. Folders in home screen
4. Much better task manager
5. Favourites tray
6. You can resize your widgets
7. Better text input and spell check
8. Superb fonts
9. More lock screen actions
10. Unified calendar, great voice input
11. dedesigned camera, gallery, video apps
12. Faster browser, better email client
13. Face unlock, Android beam NFC sharing

In short, ICS is to earlier versions of Android what Windows 7 is to Window XP.

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Android_version_history

• Redesigned UI
• Virtual buttons in the UI, instead of taking up a capacitive screen
• Widgets are in a new tab, listed in a similar list to apps
• Folders are much easier to create, with a drag-and-drop style similar to iOS
• A customizable launcher
• New phone app with visual voicemail functionality that lets you speed up or slow down *voicemail messages
• Pinch-to-zoom functionality in the calendar
• Gmail has offline search, a two-line preview, and new action bar at the bottom
• Swipe left or right to switch between Gmail conversations
• Integrated screenshot capture by holding power and volume down buttons
• Improved error correction on the keyboard
• Ability to access apps directly from lock screen (similar to HTC Sense 3.x)
• Improved copy and paste
• Better voice integration
• Face Unlock, a facial recognition service
• New tabbed web browser, allowing up to 16 tabs
• Browser now automatically syncs your Chrome bookmarks
• Modern "Roboto" font
• Data Usage section in settings lets you set warnings when you reach a certain amount of use and disabling data when you go over your limit
• Ability to kill off apps that are using data in the background
• Camera app: zero shutter lag, time lapse settings, zoom while recording
• Built-in photo editor
• New gallery layout, organized by location and person
• Refreshed people app with social network integration, status updates and hi-res images
• Android Beam, a NFC feature that lets you exchange websites, contact info, directions, YouTube, etc.

ICS (v4.x) UI isn't far from Honeycomb (v3.x) UI, the one built for tablets. Basically, the "Android UI" that changed in ICS is the phone version, which jumped from Gingerbread (v2.3.x). This shows that ICS on phones basically just followed conventions from the first Android version for tablets.

Another good question would be why Android UI was that radically different since Honeycomb in the first place. I believe that it isn't simply due to the tablet's screen size, which is evident now that a similar UI runs on phones via ICS. Matias Duarte, Android UX Director, has a lot to do with this. He joined the Android team a little before Gingerbread was released and Honeycomb was the first major version that started with his leadership [1].

He said:

On Honeycomb we cheated, we cut the corner of all that smaller device support. That’s the sole reason we haven’t open sourced it.

This means that Honeycomb's UI was their ideal UI, but due to business considerations, they had to ship the tablet OS without a sibling running on phones.

[1] http://www.theverge.com/2011/10/18/exclusive-matias-duarte-ice-cream-sandwich-galaxy-nexus/

Adding animations to your app interface will give high quality feel to your android applications. Animations can be performed through either XML or android code. In this tutorial i explained how to do animations using XML notations. I will explain how to do the same using android java code in future tutorials. Here i covered basic android animations like fade in, fade out, scale, rotate, slide up, slide down etc.,
In the source code project provided in this tutorial, I wrote separate activity and XML for each animation. Download and play with the code to get familiar with the animations. Following are list of animations covered in this article.

Basic steps to perform animation
Following are the basic steps to perform an animation on any UI element. Creating animation is very simple, all it needs is creating necessary files and write small pieces of code.

Step 1: Create xml that defines the animation
Create an xml file which defines type of animation to perform. This file should be located underanim folder under res directory (res ⇒ anim ⇒ animation.xml). If you don’t have anim folder in your res directory create one. Following is example of simple fade in animation.

fade_in.xml
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<set xmlns:android="Page on android.com"
android:fillAfter="true" >

<alpha
android:duration="1000"
android:fromAlpha="0.0"
android:interpolator="@android:anim/accelerate_interpolator"
android:toAlpha="1.0" />

</set>
Step 2: Load the animation
Next in your activity create an object of Animation class. And load the xml animation usingAnimationUtils by calling loadAnimation function.
FadeInActivity.java
public class FadeInActivity extends Activity{

TextView txtMessage;

// Animation
Animation animFadein;

@Override
protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
setContentView(R.layout.activity_fadein);

txtMessage = (TextView) findViewById(Page on r.id.txtMessage);

// load the animation
animFadein = AnimationUtils.loadAnimation(getApplicationContext(),
R.anim.fade_in);
}
}
Step 3: Set the animation listeners (Optional)
If you want to listen to animation events like start, end and repeat, your activity should implementsAnimationListener. This step is optional. If you implement AnimationListener you will have to override following methods.
onAnimationStart – This will be triggered once the animation started
onAnimationEnd – This will be triggered once the animation is over
onAnimationRepeat – This will be triggered if the animation repeats
public class FadeInActivity extends Activity implements AnimationListener {
.
.
.
// set animation listener
animFadein.setAnimationListener(this);
.
.
.
// animation listeners
@Override
public void onAnimationEnd(Animation animation) {
// Take any action after completing the animation
// check for fade in animation
if (animation == animFadein) {
Toast.makeText(getApplicationContext(), "Animation Stopped",
Toast.LENGTH_SHORT).show();
}

}

@Override
public void onAnimationRepeat(Animation animation) {
// Animation is repeating
}

@Override
public void onAnimationStart(Animation animation) {
// Animation started
}
Step 4: Finally start the animation
You can start animation whenever you want by calling startAnimation on any UI element by passing the type of animation. In this example i am calling fade in animation on TextView.
// start the animation
txtMessage.startAnimation(animFadein);
Complete Code
Following is complete code for FadeInActivity
FadeInActivity
package info.androidhive.androidanimations;

import android.app.Activity;
import android.os.Bundle;
import android.view.View;
import android.view.animation.Animation;
import android.view.animation.AnimationUtils;
import android.view.animation.Animation.AnimationListener;
import android.widget.Button;
import android.widget.TextView;
import android.widget.Toast;

public class FadeInActivity extends Activity implements AnimationListener {

TextView txtMessage;
Button btnStart;

// Animation
Animation animFadein;

@Override
protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
// TODO Auto-generated method stub
super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
setContentView(R.layout.activity_fadein);

txtMessage = (TextView) findViewById(Page on r.id.txtMessage);
btnStart = (Button) findViewById(Page on r.id.btnStart);

// load the animation
animFadein = AnimationUtils.loadAnimation(getApplicationContext(),
R.anim.fade_in);

// set animation listener
animFadein.setAnimationListener(this);

// button click event
btnStart.setOnClickListener(new View.OnClickListener() {

@Override
public void onClick(View v) {
txtMessage.setVisibility(View.VISIBLE);

// start the animation
txtMessage.startAnimation(animFadein);
}
});

}

@Override
public void onAnimationEnd(Animation animation) {
// Take any action after completing the animation

// check for fade in animation
if (animation == animFadein) {
Toast.makeText(getApplicationContext(), "Animation Stopped",
Toast.LENGTH_SHORT).show();
}

}

@Override
public void onAnimationRepeat(Animation animation) {
// TODO Auto-generated method stub

}

@Override
public void onAnimationStart(Animation animation) {
// TODO Auto-generated method stub

}

}

Important XML animation attributes
When working with animations it is better to have through knowledge about some of the important XML attributes which create major differentiation in animation behavior. Following are the important attributes you must known about.
android:duration – Duration of the animation in which the animation should complete
android:startOffset – It is the waiting time before an animation starts. This property is mainly used to perform multiple animations in a sequential manner
android:interpolator – It is the rate of change in animation
android:fillAfter – This defines whether to apply the animation transformation after the animation completes or not. If it sets to false the element changes to its previous state after the animation. This attribute should be use with <set> node
android:repeatMode – This is useful when you want your animation to be repeat
android:repeatCount – This defines number of repetitions on animation. If you set this value toinfinite then animation will repeat infinite times

Some useful animations
Following i am giving xml code to perform lot of useful animations. Try to assign different values to xml attributes to see change in animations.
1. Fade In
2. Fade Out
3. Cross Fading
4. Blink
5. Zoom In
6. Zoom Out
7. Rotate
8. Move
9. Slide Up
10. Slide Down
11. Bounce
12. Sequential Animation
13. Together Animation

Fade In
For fade in animation you can use <alpha> tag which defines alpha value. Fade in animation is nothing but increasing alpha value from 0 to 1.
fade_in.xml
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<set xmlns:android="Page on android.com"
android:fillAfter="true" >

<alpha
android:duration="1000"
android:fromAlpha="0.0"
android:interpolator="@android:anim/accelerate_interpolator"
android:toAlpha="1.0" />

</set>

Fade Out
Fade out is exactly opposite to fade in, where we need to decrease the alpha value from 1 to 0
fade_out.xml
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<set xmlns:android="Page on android.com"
android:fillAfter="true" >

<alpha
android:duration="1000"
android:fromAlpha="1.0"
android:interpolator="@android:anim/accelerate_interpolator"
android:toAlpha="0.0" />

</set>

Cross Fading
Cross fading is performing fade in animation while other element is fading out. For this you don’t have to create separate animation file, you can just use fade_in.xml and fade_out.xml files.
In the following code i loaded fade in and fade out, then performed them on two different UI elements.
TextView txtView1, txtView2;
Animation animFadeIn, animFadeOut;
.
.
// load animations
animFadeIn = AnimationUtils.loadAnimation(getApplicationContext(),
R.anim.fade_in);
animFadeOut = AnimationUtils.loadAnimation(getApplicationContext(),
R.anim.fade_out);
.
.
// set animation listeners
animFadeIn.setAnimationListener(this);
animFadeOut.setAnimationListener(this);

.
.
// Make fade in elements Visible first
txtMessage2.setVisibility(View.VISIBLE);

// start fade in animation
txtMessage2.startAnimation(animFadeIn);

// start fade out animation
txtMessage1.startAnimation(animFadeOut);

Blink
Blink animation is animating fade out or fade in animation in repetitive fashion. For this you will have to set android:repeatMode=”reverse” and android:repeatCount attributes.
blink.xml
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<set xmlns:android="Page on android.com">
<alpha android:fromAlpha="0.0"
android:toAlpha="1.0"
android:interpolator="@android:anim/accelerate_interpolator"
android:duration="600"
android:repeatMode="reverse"
android:repeatCount="infinite"/>
</set>

Zoom In
For zoom use <scale> tag. Use pivotX=”50%” and pivotY=”50%” to perform zoom from the center of the element. Also you need to use fromXScale, fromYScale attributes which defines scaling of the object. Keep these value lesser than toXScale, toYScale
zoom_in.xml
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<set xmlns:android="Page on android.com"
android:fillAfter="true" >

<scale
xmlns:android="Page on android.com"
android:duration="1000"
android:fromXScale="1"
android:fromYScale="1"
android:pivotX="50%"
android:pivotY="50%"
android:toXScale="3"
android:toYScale="3" >
</scale>

</set>

Zoom Out
Zoom out animation is same as zoom in but toXScale, toYScale values are lesser thanfromXScale, fromYScale
zoom_out.xml
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<set xmlns:android="Page on android.com"
android:fillAfter="true" >

<scale
xmlns:android="Page on android.com"
android:duration="1000"
android:fromXScale="1.0"
android:fromYScale="1.0"
android:pivotX="50%"
android:pivotY="50%"
android:toXScale="0.5"
android:toYScale="0.5" >
</scale>

</set>

Rotate
Rotate animation uses <rotate> tag. For rotate animation required tags areandroid:fromDegrees and android:toDegrees which defines rotation angles.
Clock wise – use positive toDegrees value
Anti clock wise – use negative toDegrees value
rotate.xml
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<set xmlns:android="Page on android.com">
<rotate android:fromDegrees="0"
android:toDegrees="360"
android:pivotX="50%"
android:pivotY="50%"
android:duration="600"
android:repeatMode="restart"
android:repeatCount="infinite"
android:interpolator="@android:anim/cycle_interpolator"/>

</set>

Move
In order to change position of object use <translate> tag. It uses fromXDelta, fromYDeltafor X-direction and toXDelta, toYDelta attributes for Y-direction.
move.xml
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<set
xmlns:android="Page on android.com"
android:interpolator="@android:anim/linear_interpolator"
android:fillAfter="true">

<translate
android:fromXDelta="0%p"
android:toXDelta="75%p"
android:duration="800" />
</set>

Slide Up
Sliding animation uses <scale> tag only. Slide up can be achieved by settingandroid:fromYScale=”1.0″ and android:toYScale=”0.0″
slide_up.xml
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<set xmlns:android="Page on android.com"
android:fillAfter="true" >

<scale
android:duration="500"
android:fromXScale="1.0"
android:fromYScale="1.0"
android:interpolator="@android:anim/linear_interpolator"
android:toXScale="1.0"
android:toYScale="0.0" />

</set>

Slide Down
Slide down is exactly opposite to slide down animation. Just interchange android:fromYScale andandroid:toYScale values.
slide_down.xml
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<set xmlns:android="Page on android.com"
android:fillAfter="true">

<scale
android:duration="500"
android:fromXScale="1.0"
android:fromYScale="0.0"
android:interpolator="@android:anim/linear_interpolator"
android:toXScale="1.0"
android:toYScale="1.0" />

</set>

Bounce
Bounce is just an animation effect where animation ends in bouncing fashion. For this setandroid:interpolator value to @android:anim/bounce_interpolator. This bounce can be used with any kind animation. Following slide down example uses bounce effect.
bounce.xml
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<set xmlns:android="Page on android.com"
android:fillAfter="true"
android:interpolator="@android:anim/bounce_interpolator">

<scale
android:duration="500"
android:fromXScale="1.0"
android:fromYScale="0.0"
android:toXScale="1.0"
android:toYScale="1.0" />

</set>

Sequential Animation
If you want to perform multiple animation in a sequential manner you have to useandroid:startOffset to give start delay time. The easy way to calculate this value is to add the duration and startOffset values of previous animation. Following is a sequential animation where set of move animations performs in sequential manner.
sequential.xml
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<set xmlns:android="Page on android.com"
android:fillAfter="true"
android:interpolator="@android:anim/linear_interpolator" >

<!-- Use startOffset to give delay between animations -->


<!-- Move -->
<translate
android:duration="800"
android:fillAfter="true"
android:fromXDelta="0%p"
android:startOffset="300"
android:toXDelta="75%p" />
<translate
android:duration="800"
android:fillAfter="true"
android:fromYDelta="0%p"
android:startOffset="1100"
android:toYDelta="70%p" />
<translate
android:duration="800"
android:fillAfter="true"
android:fromXDelta="0%p"
android:startOffset="1900"
android:toXDelta="-75%p" />
<translate
android:duration="800"
android:fillAfter="true"
android:fromYDelta="0%p"
android:startOffset="2700"
android:toYDelta="-70%p" />

<!-- Rotate 360 degrees -->
<rotate
android:duration="1000"
android:fromDegrees="0"
android:interpolator="@android:anim/cycle_interpolator"
android:pivotX="50%"
android:pivotY="50%"
android:startOffset="3800"
android:repeatCount="infinite"
android:repeatMode="restart"
android:toDegrees="360" />

</set>

Together Animation
Performing all animation together is just writing all animations one by one without usingandroid:startOffset
together.xml
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<set xmlns:android="Page on android.com"
android:fillAfter="true"
android:interpolator="@android:anim/linear_interpolator" >

<scale
xmlns:android="Page on android.com"
android:duration="4000"
android:fromXScale="1"
android:fromYScale="1"
android:pivotX="50%"
android:pivotY="50%"
android:toXScale="4"
android:toYScale="4" >
</scale>

<!-- Rotate 180 degrees -->
<rotate
android:duration="500"
android:fromDegrees="0"
android:pivotX="50%"
android:pivotY="50%"
android:repeatCount="infinite"
android:repeatMode="restart"
android:toDegrees="360" />

</set>

Source :- http://www.androidhive.info/2013/06/android-working-with-xml-animations/

This can be a multiple different reasons, here's just a few but they all tie into eachother in a way.

• Device — As one of the answers below says it could be your device, I'm not saying it is because most devices now days have big enough processors to handle it
• Ram — Now this sort of links with my precious statement, if the device hasn't got enough ram this can cause it too start to look choppy and horrible, especially if there is only 1GB only
• Memory — again the same with the ram if there is not enough memory to load the graphics, the ram is going to try to work harder which causes a slow device, apps not functioning etc

My advice to you is get an app there are plenty out there I recommend Simple System Monitor and just have a look and see how your ram is doing, if this is not the case take a look at your memory space, I advise leaving at least 2GB memory on the device free for all the animations and gestures to work efficiently.

I hope I could help, I'd apreicete if you could upvote if I've managed to help, if your need more help, please ask, if there's anything else I can help with, please don't be a stranger and ask.

Thanks,

Andy V

Activate developer mode by tapping multiple times on build Number under in about phone option in settings.

Once the developer mode has been activated scroll down for Transition animation scale, window animation scale and animator duration scale options and tap on them one by one and select animation off, that should turn off all of phone's animation.

Attached screenshots for more detailed informatio.

1.Turning on developer mode ( tap on build number multiple times )

2.Developer option appears in settings (scroll down for it)

3.Go to developer option and scroll down to animation scale options

4.Tap on these options and select animation off

All the best ;).

Here are some more
Updated Settings: Settings menu has been revamped and it is now easier than ever to find the setting that you are looking for.
Disabling Apps: If you can’t uninstall an app, you can always disable it in ICS. Android 4.0 adds the ability to disable an app and it will never run and its launcher icon is gone until you re-enable it. (
Improved Download Manager
Support for Encryption in Phones: Full device encryption that was a part of Honeycomb is now available in phones.
Audio Effects: New effects API.
Support for WebM streaming, MKVs: Android 4.0 natively supports the playback of MKV files as well as streaming of Googe’s WebM video format.
Hardware Acceleration: Android will finally have Hardware acceleration in ICS. It will allow for a super smooth user experience, better graphic performance, and better responsiveness within apps.
Indic fonts (Devanagari, Bengali and Tamil) support in WebView and stock browser. No need to download other browsers just to view Hindi webpages.

These were not announced in event but later told via other forumshttp://androidos.in/2011/10/android-4-0-features-that-google-missed-to-mention-at-launch-event/

Official updates from Google to Android 4.0.4 we're made available beginning in the evening of 28th March 2012 for the HSPA/GSM versions of the Samsung/Google Galaxy S, Samsung/Google Galaxy Nexus, and Motorola Xoom Wi-Fi: http://www.engadget.com/2012/03/28/android-4-0-4-rolls-out-to-hspa-galaxy-nexus-and-gsm-nexus-s/

The Samsung Galaxy SII International version (model number i9100) began receiving Android 4.0 on March 13th, 2012.

The Meizu MX and Meizu M9 received official public beta versions on 30 March 2012: http://mobile.theverge.com/2012/3/31/2916717/meizu-mx-m9-android-4-ics-update-public-beta-download

Take a look at Mutual Mobile's (slightly outdated, but still very useful) Android Design Guidelines:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/53981411/Android-Design-Guidelines-1-1

The Sizes and Resolutions section in particular should have the information you need to get started.

There are some additional best practices listed on this page in the Android dev guide:

http://developer.android.com/guide/practices/screens_support.html

Above all, since designing for Android's multitude of screen densities and resolutions can be tricky, you need to work closely with your developers to iterate designs and visual assets early and often.

• Download the animation file as json
• Add this in your build.gradle file and rebuild your project

def lottieVersion = "5.2.0"  
implementation "com.airbnb.android:lottie:$lottieVersion" 

• Create a Raw resource folder in your project if you don't have it yet. (File>New>Folder>Raw Resources Folder)
• Copy or move your animation json file to the raw folder and rename it to a conventional name of your choice (like animation.json or emoji.json…. What ever name that works for you)
• In your activity XML file add a Lottie animation view element

<com.airbnb.lottie.LottieAnimationView 
android:id="@+id/animationView" 
android:layout_width="match_parent" 
android:layout_height="wrap_content" 
app:lottie_rawRes="@raw/animation" 
app:lottie_autoPlay="true" 
app:lottie_loop="true"/> 

• Adjust the properties of the view to suit your project preference ( rawRes refer animation json file you put in the Raw resource folder)

It should look like this.

The image was reference from

Getting Started with Lottie Animations in an Android App - LottieFiles

You can get more details from

Have fun coding 😉

I can totally relate to your problem. Having worked on numerous mobile platforms I personally have had issues when it comes to UI and also have seen many engineers who are extremely good in other layers of the app but find it difficult when it comes to user interface design/development.

So here we go !

The below steps can be applicable to both developing your own app idea or working on another mobile app project.

Stage - I:

Focus on your target audience. Consider these factors :

• Age group
• Geography
• Income group
• Language

And come up with points specific to your application.

Find out how much time does it take to use a specific functionality.

Time taken for specific journeys/screen flows.

See what other apps in similar category are doing differently.

Stage - II:

Now keeping in mind all the above factors come up with :

• A new user experience
• Redefine your typography, colors, images, etc.
• Decide things like
• how much content are you going to show in a given screen?
• how are you going to take the user from one screen to a specific screen?
• how can you reduce the number of clicks?
• Can you leverage gestures and make it more usable and easy ?
• everything related to making the app more easy-to-use and aesthetic.

And align these things with the various factors of your application.

Stage - III :

Now comes the implementation part. For any given platform - Android or iOS understand its fundamental UI architecture. The UI hierarchy, the various view elements, the capabilities and limitations, implementation styles, 3rd-party libraries/SDKs. You need to question and understand why a specific layout is designed the way it is? What are other ways to achieve the same design?

Can you make it better?

• It all comes down to learning and experimenting different implementations. Extensive debugging, altering the sizes, positions and padding and seeing for yourself how it impacts the overall output.
• Understanding the various parameters and attributes for a given view elements like Dialog or TextView or a list view can help you in tweaking them according to your needs.
• Customizing a native UI element to your own needs and expanding its capabilities for your app.
• Getting continuous feedback from the stake holders.

This should get you going, Happy learning ! Hope it helps.