Android 101 - Part 1: Navigating the UI

I'm starting a new "series" called android 101. I'm writing these tutorials for the less techy people. I'm hoping to help people, to gain a better understanding, of what their smartphone can do. The first part of these will describe the user interface.

No matter what flavor of android your using, or what skin is put on in, there are a few common elements. Every android has four buttons: home, menu, back, and search(this is not the case anymore with Honeycomb or Ice Cream Sandwich). The home button takes you from wherever you are to the home screen. This doesn't make your app to quit, it only puts it in a "stand-by" mode. The menu brings up the application's(or depending on where you are the system's) menu. The back button take you back to the previous screen, even if that screen was in another application. And search is a dedicated search button, which will enable you to search an application, system or the internet for various things.
While the home screen, menu, and app drawer will most likely differ from android to android, there are a couple of basic things you do the same on every android(exception being Honeycomb, but unless you have a tablet you don't need to worry about this). Long pressing the desktop will give you the same options as menu will. This is the way to change desktop wallpaper, add an icon/widget/shortcut to the home screen. Long pressing an icon or widget will enable you to move it, remove it or on some cases re-size it. Android has a great notification system. It has had it since day one. If you pull down to top bar, then the notification drawer will open and you can see all notifications, and ongoing applications such as music which is playing, security software, battery saver, etc.

This was only a brief presentation of the user interface, but I'm planning to explore much deeper android, and give you a general view from simple settings to advanced stuff like rooting.