In this story, I’ll be discussing Apple’s Human Interface Guidelines. The information in the HIG(Human Interface Guidelines) is vast and valuable. I’m willing to bet that a lot of you haven’t read this and some may have never heard of it. In my opinion, it’s fundamental reading for any iOS developer or User Interface Designer. If you have no experience in UI/UX this will be a great start for you.

Apple’s tradition of Human Interface Guidelines in keeping them simple and legible goes long back.

1987 was the year that the Macintosh II, Apple’s first Macintosh was released with a coloured display (supporting a spectrum of 256 colors). It was also the year Apple published its Human Interface Guidelines.

We’ll be going over 5 sections of Apple’s HIG in particular. I’ll sum up the kind of information that’s in it and I’ll implore you to go through the Guidelines once if you haven’t already. If you have already gone through the HIG, I’d ask you to go through it at least once or twice a year as it is constantly being updated by Apple with the latest design system. It has the details of everything like Design Guidelines, Sketch Libraries, Design Templates, Design Previews, and Production Templates, Badges & Logos covering all interfaces such as iOS, macOS, watchOS, tvOS, and the technologies that go behind every single thing in depth.

“Design is not just what it looks like & feels like, Design is how it works.” —
Steve Jobs

This is a must-read if you’re an iOS developer or designer. Hopefully, you’ll get a better perspective of the Guidelines after reading this. This is just an overview and I’ll only touch on a couple of topics, so you do need to check out the Guidelines for in-depth information on everything. It definitely is a long read but it also is fundamental for developers & designers.

Let’s dive into it.

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1. Mac Catalyst

One latest update is the addition of the section “Catalyst” which wasn’t there the last year.

You should go through the Mac Catalyst guidelines because this will tell you how to adjust & tune your iOS apps to make sure there’s still a great experience on the macOS. I’ll do an overview of this section so you basically get to know what Catalyst is.

Firstly, it defines some particular things to look at like Support Multitasking, Support Drag and Drop, and Response to Keyboard Shortcuts. It will give you all kinds of enhancements you get for free with a mac app. Things like System preferences, Split view, File Browser, etc. It even has information on the mundane stuff like loading (this properly tells you how to properly handle your loading states for your app).

It groups the conventions and design patterns that have the biggest impacts on adaptation in 4 key areas that are —

• Navigation
• User input & interactions
• Menus
• Content Scaling

This section has all the information on what you need to know & follow to make an iPhone app conform to catalyst.

2. Visual Design

The visual Design section would brief you about meeting the Adaptivity & Layout criteria and expectations, designing an adaptable interface by configuring UI elements and layouts to automatically change shape and size on different devices, during multitasking on iPad, in split view, when the screen rotates, and more.

iOS devices have a variety of screen sizes and people can use them in either portrait or landscape orientation. In edge-to-edge devices like iPhone X and iPad Pro, the display has rounded corners that closely match the device’s overall dimensions. Other devices — such as iPhone SE and iPad Air — have a rectangular display.

If your app runs on a specific device, the guidelines in Visual Design would make sure it runs on every screen size for that device. In other words, an iPhone-only app must run on every iPhone screen size and an iPad-only app must run on every iPad screen size.

Visual Design Guidelines have every single thing covered in categories like Adaptivity & Layout, Animations, Branding, Colour, Dark Mode, Launch Screens, Materials, Terminology, Typography, etc.

3. App Architecture

The architecture of an application describes the patterns and techniques used to design and build an application. Apple’s app architecture gives you a roadmap and best practices to follow when building an application so that you end up with a well-structured app.

This section of the guidelines gives details about the architecture that has to be followed while designing and developing an application. You’ll get insights on the Launching, Onboarding, Loading, Modality, Navigation, Accessing User Data, and Settings.

The entire formula behind the Human Interface Guidelines is to target consistency among every interface & design and adaptivity to the Apple Ecosystem. Good mobile app architecture is the foundation of all well-designed software and can provide an excellent user experience and Apple always strives for that.

4. User Interactions

Human interface guidelines will dictate a set of rules for general usability. User Interactions fall under this, User interaction is how the user acts on the system and how the system acts on the user.

Categories like 3D touch, Apple Pencil & Scribble, Data Entry, Drag & Drop, Haptics, Feedback, File Handling, Game Controllers, Gestures, Spatial Interactions, Undo & Redo, etc. are all covered under this section.

User Interactions play a major role in defining User Experiences and both go hand-in-hand to provide users with a seamless experience of the application. Apple’s guidelines page itself has interactive elements as you get to see the examples of everything in a very intuitive manner. Apple’s Guidelines also cover things like how to design anything in a better manner.

5. Technologies

Apple has dominated the consumer electronics market and software for decades. They have been continuously developing technologies beyond imagination which sets them apart from other companies that are in direct competition with them.

You’ll find everything related to AirPlay, Apple Pay, Augmented Reality, CarPlay, Game center, Health Kit, iCloud, in-app purchases, Live photos, Machine learning, Maps, Siri, etc. in the Apple’s Human Interface Guidelines in a very elaborative and well laid out manner.

Apple is globally known for setting Benchmarks in every field they are involved in be it Design, Manufacturing, Development, or Technologies.

This was about it for an overview of Apple’s HIG.