YASMINE EVJEN: The great thing about 1Password,
it doesn't make me stand outside in the cold like you all.
[LAUGHTER]
CREW: We're still rolling though, right?
CREW: Yeah, we're still rolling.
CREW: OK, here we go.
Ready and action.
YASMINE EVJEN: When I get a new phone,
one of the first apps that gets installed is 1Password.
Over the years, it's really evolved into a really robust
system and taken advantage of some of the Android
capabilities, making for a really great user experience.
And they've also brought their Android app to Chrome OS,
really expanding their reach.
I'm here to chat with the 1Password team in Toronto
to see how user feedback has helped evolve the product
throughout the years.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
To kick things off, I'm going to meet with Michael.
He's the Android product development lead for 1Password.
Password management is something that
actually can be pretty complicated and really
frustrating.
MICHAEL VERDE: What we try to do is
we try to take the user interface,
take these rather complex ideas about security and encryption,
and we try to make it as simple and easy to use as possible.
YASMINE EVJEN: We've seen this evolution of 1Password
coming into the Android space by creating this Android app,
as well as bringing the Android app to Chrome OS.
MICHAEL VERDE: When Chrome OS really
started taking off in popularity, one of the things
that sort of troubled us was the fact that we weren't there.
We want 1Password to be where our users are.
So whatever platform they're on, that's where we want to be.
YASMINE EVJEN: Can we take a trip down memory lane,
showing me the evolution of 1Password on Android?
MICHAEL VERDE: Yeah.
So the very first version of 1Password
that was available on Android, which
we called 1Password Reader--
and we called it that because it was read only at the time.
YASMINE EVJEN: Yeah, it really was just a way
for you to access your passwords so you could view them.
Other than that, it was pretty bare minimum.
MICHAEL VERDE: Right.
So if we fast forward to 2014 when we launched 1Password 4,
a big part of our goal was we want
people to be able to do the same things on Android
that they're doing on the other platforms with 1Password.
And we did them straight ahead to 1Password 6,
partly because in terms of design
and in terms of features, this was a huge jump ahead.
We were borrowing at this point in time
now from material design.
So material design was launched with Lollipop.
And we were really inspired by that
to take another look at the design of the app
to make it feel native and natural to the Android
platform.
And then finally, we can jump ahead
to today with 1Password 7, which we actually
launched just this summer.
YASMINE EVJEN: How has user feedback played a role
in the evolution of 1Password?
MICHAEL VERDE: User feedback is absolutely critical for us.
It's been a part of the 1Password story right
from the very beginning.
Actually, the biggest single group within our company
is focused on customer support.
And so what they do for us is they
basically act as advocates for our customers,
telling us developers when we've gotten it
right, or more importantly, when we've gotten it wrong.
YASMINE EVJEN: And how closely do the customer advocates
work with the development team?
MICHAEL VERDE: We do have a few key people within the company
who help to bring a focus to customer support
and communicate as liaisons between the customer support
team and the development team.
So Peri is my go-to person for that
on the Android side of things.
YASMINE EVJEN: Well, I look forward to talking to Peri
and just hearing more about how customer feedback has really
gotten into the app.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
One of the things that I've noticed about 1Password
is that they have a really, really strong customer
support and advocacy team.
PERI AHMADI: We do put a lot of emphasis on customer support
at 1Password.
We like to have that bridge between what our customers are
experiencing and what we're actually developing for them.
YASMINE EVJEN: I want to know, what are some of the things
that you really pushed forward that you were able to gather
from the community to actually improve and make
the product better?
PERI AHMADI: One major change we made that had a lot of requests
before we implemented it was being able to search quickly.
YASMINE EVJEN: I think I was one of those people that
was advocating for the quick search.
So you just made it real easy to people to find what they need,
which is really good about 1Password.
Because it contains all of your data, and you want to keep
it secure.
But if you can't access it very quickly,
you're not likely to put it in there.
I want to do a side-by-side of what a kind of a pain
it was to access search before and how you've actually
improved it.
I'm using the new 1Password 7 app.
So if we wanted to search for the discussions for the forum,
I just go quickly to search, start typing in forums,
and I already got it.
PERI AHMADI: I was on favorites.
And then I had to go open the navigation drawer,
tap categories.
>From there, tap items.
And then tap the search.
1 2, 3, 4 before you can actually start.
It adds up for regular users of the app, for sure.
YASMINE EVJEN: So what I love about the changes
with 1Password 6 and 1Password 7 is that you really just
made it so much easier for people
to access their information super quick.
PERI AHMADI: It needs to be user friendly
because it's a tricky app for most people
to use in the first place.
YASMINE EVJEN: Peri, I really had a great time hearing
how you've helped improve 1Password.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Now I'm off to chat with Saad, 1Password's Android engineer,
to learn how to bring an Android app to Chrome OS.
But first, I need some coffee.
I know this place only takes cash.
SAAD MOHAMMAD: No worries, I got this.
YASMINE EVJEN: Oh, thank you.
SAAD MOHAMMAD: Two coffees, please.
YASMINE EVJEN: Yeah, let me e-transfer you.
The cool thing about 1Password is
that it has autofill all set up so I don't even
have to search for the log in.
I can just send it right away.
When you're thinking about bringing your Android
app to Chrome OS, you have to think
about the different screen sizes that are available,
whether that's running on a tablet
or something like a Pixelbook.
Walk me through.
What were some of the design considerations
that you had to take?
SAAD MOHAMMAD: We've been lucky, in the sense that we
have always developed 1Password with responsive UI in mind,
just because Android devices come
with so many different size screens and screen densities.
So we always had to develop with multiple screens in mind.
And now that we have multi-window on Android
and we can run Android apps on Chrome OS,
it just becomes essential to have a responsive UI.
YASMINE EVJEN: Walk me through how
you approach the different break points
as you were going through that.
SAAD MOHAMMAD: We always had sort of a tablet layout
for larger displays.
Chrome OS will pretty much handle the rest
and knows the available window size.
So once you pass a certain limit,
it will switch to the different layout.
I can only see my item list at this point.
I'm not able to have the two-pane layout.
YASMINE EVJEN: And as you expand that,
it starts to utilize the other extra space.
So you don't have to rely on tapping a list item
and then going into the item detail view.
You could actually just tap on the list side
and it already shows you the item detail view.
SAAD MOHAMMAD: It shows it to you, yeah.
YASMINE EVJEN: One of the things that I
wanted to make note here is that you went away
from the bottom navigation and you added this side
navigation that still gives you access to your favorites
and categories and tags and settings and all the things
that you needed.
But it moves away from the bottom
now, which is actually really important.
Because with bottom navigation, one of the highlights of it
is that on mobile it's easy to tap on and access.
But you lose a lot of that when you are on a larger display.
It doesn't have the same benefits.
And so bringing it to the side where people can quickly
tap on it or click on it, if you're using a trackpad
or whatnot, makes it real easy.
Chrome OS has the capability of having
a trackpad and a keyboard.
So if I wanted to implement keyboard navigation
onto my app, what is the process that I would go through?
SAAD MOHAMMAD: You have to override the method,
dispatch key, shortcut event.
And you just watch for the key that you're interested in.
You can use a flag to indicate whether certain UI is
focusable.
And if it is focusable, then the system
will pretty much handle that.
YASMINE EVJEN: When you have an item that you can focus on,
you have to add some form of accessibility label
so people know where they are.
SAAD MOHAMMAD: We can take a look
at this view, where we sort of indicate
whether certain controls are important for accessibility.
In that case, we can use a flag to indicate
whether this particular element is important for accessibility.
And if we say no accessibility, we'll just skip over it.
But when we're using things like ImageView,
we can also set a description.
So if we're looking at an account banner, for example,
we can actually indicate that as a content description
for that UI element.
YASMINE EVJEN: Saad, thanks so much for sharing
how you brought the Android app to Chrome OS.
Over the years, user feedback has evolved the 1Password app
from a simple password reader to a full-fledged Android app.
Their use of material design laid the foundation for them
to build a consistent Android experience on various screen
sizes.
Developing with responsive UI in mind
ensures your app delivers a great user experience
across mobile and Chrome OS devices.
As product creators, we have a responsibility
to create things that are focused
on the human experience, things that are "Centered."
SPEAKER 1: Hey.
SPEAKER 2: There you go.
SPEAKER 1: Use your hands.
Use your arms.
YASMINE EVJEN: I can do so much in a jacket.
I'm crossing at the wrong time.
[LAUGHTER]