You can use the TextInputLayout to display error messages according to the material design guidelines using the setError and setErrorEnabledmethods.

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: