Which layout looks better?

[Pinguin]

Sign Up: The first one. I don't like the check mark button (it might even confuse some people) and the card is superfluous, the app looks cleaner without it.

 

Student Planner: The second one. No cards if you basically use the entire width of the screen.

[joaosambro]

i would prefer the second one . Looks like an android screen. Just add a sign up option. 

[Wellington the Skellington]

second one

[Hackzzila]

Second

[Joshndroid]

I like the second one

[maxib7]

Sign Up: The first one. I don't like the check mark button (it might even confuse some people) and the card is superfluous, the app looks cleaner without it.

 

Student Planner: The second one. No cards if you basically use the entire width of the screen.

 

You know after doing a lot more thinking I think you're right. The card in the sign up seems inappropriate. Here's a quote from google's material design spec

 

"A card is a piece of paper with unique related data that serves as an entry point to more detailed information. For example, a card could contain a photo, text, and a link about a single subject."  (http://www.google.com/design/spec/components/cards.html#_

 

 

It is an entry point for more information, so a more appropriate use would be on my main screen where I have things like this (It's not done yet but it will have information and stuff on it)

[Pinguin]

Why use cards at all? There is nothing to the left or right of your content, not even free space, so there is no need to separate anything.

[maxib7]

Why use cards at all? There is nothing to the left or right of your content, not even free space, so there is no need to separate anything.

 

On the contrary I think the use of cards on my main screen are entirely appropriate. They are displaying unique content in a list of items and they don't need to have things to either side of them.

 

See google's example here: 

[Pinguin]

They're not doing it in Hangouts or the Youtube app. So I guess it depends on the content. Are these items so different that you want to separate them by using cards instead of a simple line?

[beingGamer]

2nd, it will save lot of space

[maxib7]

They're not doing it in Hangouts or the Youtube app. So I guess it depends on the content. Are these items so different that you want to separate them by using cards instead of a simple line?

 

In the hangouts example that's a long list of extremely similar and most importantly short information. When you have a quickly scan-able list the only reason cards aren't used is because it distracts the eyes from the meaningful content.

See google's example here from there material design spec page:

link: http://www.google.com/design/spec/components/cards.html#cards-usage

 

Also here is another example from the same web page that shows an example of appropriate card use

 

You'll notice that the cards are large enough that they can display information without drawing the eyes away from the content.

 

Now I see what you mean when you look at my main page right now. The cards don't hold anything but two lines and yes that would be inappropriate then; however, I'm not yet finished and when I'm done it will hold an array of dynamic, expandable content. It will, when I' m finished, have more than three lines of content filling it. 

 

Which on Google's material design spec page, they say you should use a card layout when displaying content that "[w]ould otherwise be in a list but needs to display more than three lines of text."

 

 

Also Youtube does use cards. They use it on their website. In their app, however, they can't use them because the information is so close together that it would cause the eyes to look at the spaces between the cards rather the content in the cards themselves

 

 

 

 

Now with that being said material design is not a how to guide nor is it a strict set of rules that everything you do has to follow. It is a philosophy that is meant to give you a theme to strive towards when you design things. There are many different ways to do things in material design and it is up to that individual designer to decide how it will look. They give us a spec to describe the rules to us and let us go on our own to make things.