You can use the TextInputLayout to display error messages according to the material design guidelines using the [setError](<https://developer.android.com/reference/android/support/design/widget/TextInputLayout.html#setError(java.lang.CharSequence)>) and [setErrorEnabled](<https://developer.android.com/reference/android/support/design/widget/TextInputLayout.html#setErrorEnabled(boolean)>)methods.

In order to show the error below the EditText use:

TextInputLayout til = (TextInputLayout) findViewById(R.id.username);
til.setErrorEnabled(true);
til.setError("You need to enter a name");

To enable error in the TextInputLayout you can eithr use app:errorEnabled="true" in xml or til.setErrorEnabled(true); as shown above.

You will obtain:

http://i.stack.imgur.com/kbuWP.png