Expressive Android, but Material ‘3.5’ apps

Zooming out, it’s amusing that Apple and Google both chose 2025 to overhaul the design language of their operating systems. Android’s Material 3 Expressive redesign has been well received, but I want to focus on the updates to Google apps.  

M3 Expressive is an absolute success on phones, tablets, and watches. Every version of Android gets piecemeal design updates, but big redesigns like M3E help unify interfaces and make them feel cohesive with each other.

However, on the app front, specifically Google’s first-party clients, M3 Expressive feels like an incremental update. Notably, the “Expressive” part does not feel fully present in the first wave of Google app updates. 

The name provides the biggest clue. This is not Material 4, it’s still rooted in Material 3 from 2021 but with the goal of being “Expressive.” To me, this update feels, looks, and works like Material 3.5. 

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So far, I find Material 3 Expressive in Google apps to be contradictory. There are aspects that I quite like but with caveats, led by the search app bar that moves the hamburger button and profile avatar/switcher outside of the pill-shaped container, which is now taller. It feels like a good modernization, especially as implemented in Google Workspace apps like Docs/Sheets/Slides, Drive, Gmail, and Keep.

However, the previous design — where all those buttons were placed in the search container —  objectively made for a more universal and consistent component. An app like Contacts that has been updated for M3E cannot use the search app bar because it just has a profile switcher and no hamburger menu. Similarly, the Phone app doesn’t have a profile switcher.

Not all Google apps have to look the same, but there should be more consistency that could be built around the avatar switcher or search functionality at the top of the screen.

Then there’s the decision to go from the tall bottom bar in Material You back to a short one in M3 Expressive. There’s seemingly no reason for this, with the space you get back not really resulting in more room for content. (When Google TV made the switch, the Library tab forgot to take advantage of the reclaimed area.)

If anything, you’d think the previous design is more in line with M3E’s preference for bigger touch targets as seen in FABs and other buttons. Google is still in the process of updating tall bottom bars to short ones.

Speaking of navigation, what we thought was going to be a floating bottom bar (in Google Chat) is actually a floating toolbar. It’s meant to “display frequently used actions relevant to the current page” instead of serving as the main navigation component for an app, with albums in Google Photos being the main example. 

I do think the Liquid Glass implementation is cool, but there are various usability questions with using it as a navigation element. Namely, it’s not like you can read or see more between the floating pill and system navigation bar, though the narrower width might have some benefits. Arguably, you allow more space for content by docking it to the bottom, so Google made the right call.

Meanwhile, the decision to put everything in containers is one I’m ambivalent about. Containers can help information stand out more and make obvious what can be tapped or interacted with, so I appreciate that usability enhancement.

However, I find M3E interfaces to be too cluttered or dense compared to what came before, and wonder whether apps are over-containerized, especially interfaces that are primarily list views. (On a related note, Google Drive seemingly abandoned the use of containers after initially rolling it out.)

Containers vs. no containers

Buttons have gotten quite large in M3E. The prime examples are Google Meet and Clock’s Stopwatch. Bigger touch targets, like the use of large FABs in Google Drive and Docs, look fine (after an adjustment period) in the grand scheme. However, “extra large” buttons still look comical to me. It just doesn’t look proportional to the rest of the interface, especially when placing a call in Meet.

There are some truly nice animations that reflect the new motion-physics system and make interactions “feel more alive, fluid, and natural”:

• Pull-to-refresh/sync in Google Photos is the highlight
• The FAB menu in Google Docs has a nice spring, but the one in Google Drive is unwieldy as a list of six items, though it’s really seven given the persistent scan FAB above it
• Loading indicators with M3E shapes are a nice change from spinners

Fundamentally, how I use Google apps every day has not significantly changed due to Material 3 Expressive. In comparison, Android 16 on Pixel is still familiar but feels more alive than ever thanks to M3E, especially the motion updates.

While the M3 Expressive update standardized Android’s UI, how apps work following the redesign does not feel any more cohesive than before, and that’s a missed opportunity. Applications certainly don’t feel “more engaging and easier to use,” though you can say that about the system interface.

Expressive design makes you feel something. It inspires emotion, communicates function, and helps users achieve their goals.

To me, the new and updated components feel like Material 3.5, with the first wave of Google app redesigns achieving that adoption. However, they are just straightforward component swaps rather than overhauls that incorporate Expressive-ness from the ground up and rethink what core interfaces that date back years should look like today.