I'm an Android dev working at Monzo - AMA

where “AMA” is short for “ask me certain things”.

I work (or have started to work) on usability and inclusive design on the mobile apps, and I’m looking into making some longer form Q&A audio content.

If you have any questions you’d like to ask (Android or accessibility related) please add them below :raised_hands:


Edit: To be clear, I am looking for questions that I’ll be able to answer in audio format. I will try to respond to some of these questions here too, thanks!

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Why are you guys always ahead of the ios developers :eyes:

No how do decisions be made between approaches taken for development on both streams so theyre in sync?

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How many days are showing on the “Days since Ataul broke something?” tracker? :wink:
Jokes aside!

What’s your thoughts on Material Theming / Material Design 2 and how it’s changed the approach to creating the UI elements and usability?

What’s your favourite feature that you’ve worked on?

Cheers :grin:

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How did you get into Android development and how would you advise somebody else do the same? :slight_smile:

What’s your favourite Android feature (i.e. something amazing that Android lets you do which less flexible OS’ might not let you do)?

And finally, are you excited for the Android Q beta? :sunglasses:Android "Q" Beta Leak!

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How easy would it be to port this to iOS?

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I’m a partially sighted Monzo user on Android. I’ve submitted a few bits of feedback regarding issues around text size and text overflow. Is this something you will be focussing on?
I’m free for any further discussion if this helps you in your role.

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With accessibility will there ever be a feature where customers can flag up any problems with VoiceOver or TalkBack? (My favourite little task I did at Monzo tbqh)

In an idealistic world all issues wouldn’t be there but with new features always being released it’s possible.

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What are your thoughts on motion in UI design? And can we expect to see some of this in the Monzo app?

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I find motion in UI really helps me navigate and process UI elements and everything on screen easier.

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Just to add this in early - for every feature that’s available on Android before iOS, there’ll be a different feature for which the opposite is true, where the ideal (most cases!) is that we ship features at the same time :sweat_smile:

I’ll go into more detail at a later stage, thanks for your question!

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As a UX/UI Designer, I want to say thanks for the opening up this topic.

How do you work with your product designers on a day to day basis? And what artefacts to they provide you in order for you to work to the best of your ability? Zeplin pages or pages on confluence?

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What’s the product testing process like at Monzo? How much do you rely on automated testing versus QA/software testers?

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Thanks for posting Ade!

great question, thanks!

interesting question, I’d only be able to answer the first part because I’m not aware of any plans to introduce meaningful motion to the app.

Thanks Rachel for the work you did raising these issues! I’m planning to raise them soon.

re: a feature where customers can flag up problems, I think the best bet would still be to go via in-app customer support. We now have a separate escalation channel for accessibility queries raised to COps.

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Thanks! It’s more common for users with vision impairments to be using iOS so I’m happy that we have users on Android who we can engage for feedback :blush:

I hear you on text overflow for sure - we can do a better job with making resizable containers and being more aware when text will ellipsize to make sure it only happens intentionally.

Is this something you will be focussing on?

yes :raised_hands:but in a hasten slowly sort of fashion, which I’ll get into more detail on the podcast.

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image

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I hope to see Monzo Podcasts on Spotify/GooglePodcasts etc. That’d be very unique and you could get team members to speak about what they’re working on giving more and more insight into the world that is Monzo.

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Hey there, is this podcast up?

We recorded it bright and early on Monday morning. After we finished, we just had 90 minutes of silence - something went wrong with the audio source :sob:

I decided I’d reply to these here, so thanks for reminding me! On the bright side, I don’t have to listen to my voice, and I’ll be much clearer here than I could be speaking.