The people and conversations initiative is a multi-year Android initiative that
aims to elevate people and conversations in the system surfaces of the phone.
This priority is based on the fact that communication and interaction with other
people is still the most valued and important functional area for the majority
of our users across all demographics.
A number of features were introduced in Android 11 to support
the people and conversations initiative.
Conversation space
On handheld devices, there is a separate section on top of the notification
shade containing only real-time conversations with people (such as calls and
chat messages, including group chats). Notifications in this space
look and act differently from non-conversation notifications on many phones:
- The design is different, with a strong emphasis on the avatar representing
people combined with the app carrying the conversation.
- A tap on the notification opens the
conversation in the app (or
bubble
, if the
conversation was previously bubbled),
and a tap on the caret expands the new messages in the shade to full length
with the full list of options.
- Conversation-specific actions are offered (some by long-pressing):
- Mark this conversation as priority
- Promote this conversation to bubble (only shown if the app supports
bubbles)
- Silence notifications for this conversation
- Set custom sounds or vibrations for this conversation
Conversations in Bubbles
Beginning in Android 11,
Bubbles
can be
started from notifications in the Conversations section. Only notifications with
an associated shortcut are able to bubble. Conversations bubble automatically
if they are marked as important or are triggered to bubble in the notification
shade.
Conversation Shortcuts
Shortcuts to conversations appear in the launcher and alongside
long-lived
,
sharing shortcuts
in the sharesheet.
API guidelines
This section describes the APIs to add support in your app for the
system-provided space that shows people and conversations.
Shortcuts for Conversations
In order to participate in this conversation-centric initiative, apps need
to provide the system with
long-lived
shortcuts. We strongly recommend using long-lived
sharing shortcuts
. If
necessary, you can use
dynamic
shortcuts
in
Android 11, but we may remove this option in the future.
To publish a
shortcut
to the
conversation, call the
ShortcutManagerCompat
methods
setDynamicShortcuts()
,
addDynamicShortcuts()
,
or
pushDynamicShortcut()
(which automatically manages the shortcut limit for the developer). This shortcut must be
long-lived
and have
Person
data attached for one or more persons, identifying the other participants in the
conversation. We also recommend that you set the
LocusIdCompat
.
If a conversation no longer exists, the app can delete the shortcut with
removeLongLivedShortcuts()
;
doing so causes the system to delete all data associated with the conversation.
Although shortcuts are removable, apps
shouldn't remove cached shortcuts
unless absolutely necessary; a shortcut is probably cached because the user
interacted with it to change their experience, and removing the shortcut will
undo those changes, leading to user frustration.
Conversation Notifications
A notification is considered as a conversation notification if the following are true:
The notification uses
MessagingStyle
.
(Only if the app targets Android 11 or higher)
The
notification is associated with a valid
long-lived
dynamic or cached sharing shortcut. The notification can set this association by calling
setShortcutId()
or
setShortcutInfo()
.
If the app targets Android 10 or lower, the notification doesn't
have to be associated with a shortcut, as discussed in the
fallback options
section.
The user hasn't demoted the conversation from the conversation section via
notification channel settings, at the time of posting.
Use LocusIdCompat
On-device intelligence determines the conversations that the user is most likely
to be interested in. Among the most important signals are
recency
and
frequency
of conversation sessions in each conversation. The system knows
about interactions with a conversation from Launcher shortcuts or within a
notification if they are properly tagged. However, the system doesn't know
about conversations that happened fully in the app unless those interactions are
also tagged. Thus, we strongly recommend that you
attach a
LocusIdCompat
to the
shortcut
and annotate the in-app activity or fragment with the
associated
LocusIdCompat
. Use
LocusIdCompat
to enable the suggestion system to properly rank the conversation, and to enable
the system to display the correct time of the user's last interaction (including
in-app interactions) with a conversation. If you use
setShortcutInfo()
to associate the conversation with a shortcut, the conversations system
automatically attaches the appropriate
LocusIdCompat
.
Conversation space requirements for apps that target Android?10 or lower
If an app doesn't target Android 11, its messages can still be
surfaced in the conversation space. However, the app still must meet certain
requirements. This section describes the requirements for those apps, and the
fallback behavior if the app doesn't meet the requirements.
The core requirement for participation in the messaging space is, the app must
implement
MessagingStyle
notifications, and the notifications must reference
a
long-lived shortcut
from the notification that is published at the
time the notification is posted. Notifications that meet these requirements
appear in the conversation space with this behavior:
- Notification is displayed in
conversation style
- Bubble
button is offered, if implemented
- Conversation specific
functions
are offered inline
If the notification doesn't meet these requirements, the platform uses fallback
options to format the notification. If a notification meets the requirements of
either fallback case, the notification is displayed in the conversation space
with special formatting. If the notification doesn't qualify for either
fallback option, it isn't displayed in the conversation space.
Fallback: If MessagingStyle is used but no shortcut is provided
If the app targets Android 10 or lower and a notification uses
MessagingStyle
but does
not
associate the message with a shortcut, the notification
is shown in the conversation space with this behavior:
- Notification is displayed in
conversation style
- No bubble button
is offered
- No conversation-specific functions
are offered inline
Fallback: If MessagingStyle isn't used, but the app is a recognized messaging app
If a notification doesn't use
MessagingStyle
but the app is recognized by the platform as a messaging app, and the notification's
category
parameter is set to
msg
,
the notification is shown in the conversation space with this behavior:
- Notification is displayed in
old, pre-Android 11 style
- No bubble button
is offered
- No conversation-specific functions
are offered inline
Guidance, usage, and testing
This section provides general guidance on how to use and test the conversation features.
When should I use conversations?
Conversation Notifications and related shortcuts are intended to improve the
user experience of
real-time conversations
. For example, SMS, text chats,
and phone calls are real-time conversations where users expect to communicate
quickly. Users don't have that expectation with emails and activities unrelated
to conversations.
We’ve given users the ability to remove a given conversation from the
conversation section if they don’t feel it’s in the right space.
Best practices
To increase engagement and make it easier for your users to interact with people
and conversations around your app, we recommend the following best practices.
- To ensure that missed calls are surfaced in the prioritized conversation
shade and appear correctly in the
conversion widget
, format missed call notifications
as
conversations
with a
category set to
CATEGORY_MISSED_CALL
.
- Provide high-quality avatars (104dp) for users; otherwise, the system
uses the person's initials, which is a less engaging experience.
- Don’t
cancel
a
conversation notification before the user has not seen the message. One
example of this is canceling a notification when opening the app in a view
where the user can't see or address the message. If the user isn’t given the
opportunity to read or address the message, a canceled notification and its
associated bubble are removed, resulting in the loss of conversation context.
- Provide a
data
URI for MIME-related metadata associated with messages, which gives you the
option of providing a richer experience in notifications.
- Use the
Android 12 status
API to make
conversation widgets
more engaging.
- Adopt the following best practices for
conversation shortcuts
.
- Publish shortcuts for incoming and outgoing in-app conversations that
do not push notifications. Incoming and outgoing messages for the same
conversation should have the same shortcut ID. Use
pushDynamicShortcut()
to publish your shortcuts and report usage.
- To avoid unintentional clipping of your shortcut avatar, provide an
AdaptiveIconDrawable
for the shortcut's icon. See
Providing shortcut imagery
for more details.
- To help the system promote your shortcut, follow
guidelines for getting the best ranking
.
Your shortcut is ranked in different system surfaces, including the Android
sharesheet if it's a sharing shortcut.
- Ensure that conversation shortcuts
intents
launch directly into the applicable conversation.
- Use the compat libs to conveniently set your shortcuts as
conversation
related.
Testing Conversation Notifications and shortcuts
If you follow the conversation space
guidelines
,
conversations should automatically appear in the
conversation space
.
You can verify that the shortcut is properly integrated by long-pressing
on the notification. If the integration is done properly, the UI shows
conversation-related actions. If the notification isn't linked to a shortcut,
the UI shows text stating that the app doesn't support conversation features.
Added shortcuts
display on a long-press on the app launcher.
Be sure to test that the shortcuts take you to the correct place within your
app.
Added sharing shortcuts
are shown in the sharesheet's direct share row when sharing content that
your sharing shortcut can receive.
In Android 12, the Conversation Widget feature builds on the people and
conversations feature
introduced in Android 11
by allowing apps to display conversation status in Conversation widgets.
Conversation widgets promote user interaction by allowing them to easily open
chats on the home screen. These widgets are enhanced shortcuts that allow users
to efficiently get back to their conversations while showing snippets of their
conversation status or other relevant information.
To validate that your app supports conversation widgets, you need to have at
least two Android devices (both running Android 12) and two user accounts
(one on each device) to exchange messages. For the purposes of this procedure,
we’ll call the accounts “user A” and “user B.”
Complete the following steps:
- On user A’s device, long-press on the launcher. In the widget picker, tap a
new widget for a conversation as shown in figure 2.
- Drag the widget to the home screen. A list of active or recent conversations
from user A’s app should be selectable.
- Now, on user B’s device, send a test message to user A.
- Back on user A’s device, verify that the widget is updated to reflect the
notification of the message from user B.
- Optional: have both user A and user B set the conversation to different
status values to ensure that their widgets properly reflect them. For a list of
status values, see
ConversationStatus
.