How should I design an iPad app using Apple's HIG?

Apple's HIG recommends using sidebars instead of bottom tab bars on iPadOS, supporting split views for multitasking, and adding pointer interactions. Apple HIG Skills provides instant, AI-ready guidance on all iPadOS conventions.

What are Apple's guidelines for adding Apple Pay?

Apple's HIG specifies exact payment button placement, flow design, error states, and UX patterns required for App Store approval. Apple HIG Skills gives your AI agent access to the full Apple Pay design guidelines.

How do I make my Apple app accessible?

Apple's HIG requires support for VoiceOver, Dynamic Type, sufficient color contrast ratios, and motor accessibility features like Switch Control. Apple HIG Skills covers all accessibility foundations and requirements.

How do I design for visionOS and Apple Vision Pro?

Apple's HIG for visionOS covers ornaments, volumes, immersive spaces, eye tracking, and spatial interaction patterns. Apple HIG Skills includes dedicated visionOS platform guidance and spatial layout references.

What are Apple's dark mode design guidelines?

Apple's HIG specifies using system semantic colors, material backgrounds, elevated surfaces, and vibrancy for dark mode. Apps should test in both modes and avoid hard-coded color values. Apple HIG Skills covers the full dark mode specification.

How should I design notifications for iOS apps?

Apple's HIG covers notification grouping, Live Activities, action buttons, and respecting user attention. Apple HIG Skills provides guidelines for the full notification system including widgets and complications.

Source: Apple Inc. Canonical content at https://developer.apple.com/design/human-interface-guidelines/eyes. This file is a structured index of that content, snapshot 2025-02-02. Apple HIG text and imagery are © Apple Inc.; this repository provides organization and cross-referencing for AI agent consumption only.

Eyes

Best practices

Always give people multiple ways to interact with your app.

Design for visual comfort.

Place content at a comfortable viewing distance.

Prefer using standard UI components.

Making items easy to see

Minimize visual distractions.

Make it easy for people to look at an item by providing enough space around it.

Avoid using a repeating pattern or texture that fills the field of view.

Encouraging interaction

Consider using subtle visual cues to encourage people to look at the item they’re most likely to want.

In general, give an interactive item a rounded shape.

If you create an interactive component that consists of more than one element, be sure to provide an overall containing shape that visionOS can highlight.

Custom hover effects

Prefer using a custom hover effect to emphasize or enhance a special moment in your experience.

Choose the right delay.

No delay (default). A custom hover effect that appears without delay tends to be especially useful when the effect is subtle or invites interaction, like when a knob appears on a slider.
Short delay. Consider using a short delay to let people look at an element and quickly interact with it without waiting for the effect to appear; for example, the expansion of tabs in a tab bar works this way.
Long delay. If your custom hover effect shows additional information, like when a tooltip appears below a button, a slightly longer delay can work well because most people won’t need to view the additional information every time.

Aim to keep one or more of the element’s primary views unchanged in both states of a custom hover effect.

Thoroughly test custom hover effects.

Eyes

Eyes

Best practices

Making items easy to see

Encouraging interaction

Custom hover effects

Platform considerations

Resources

Developer documentation

Videos

Change log

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