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/menus. 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.

Menus

Labels

For each menu item, write a label that clearly and succinctly describes it.

To be consistent with platform experiences, use title-style capitalization.

Remove articles like a , an , and the from menu-item labels to save space.

Show people when a menu item is unavailable.

Append an ellipsis to a menu item’s label when the action requires more information before it can complete.

Icons

Represent menu item actions with familiar icons.

Don’t display an icon if you can’t find one that clearly represents the menu item.

Use a single icon to introduce a group of similar items.

Organization

Prefer listing important or frequently used menu items first.

Consider grouping logically related items.

Prefer keeping all logically related commands in the same group, even if the commands don’t all have the same importance.

Be mindful of menu length.

Submenus

Use submenus sparingly.

Limit the depth and length of submenus.

Make sure a submenu remains available even when its nested menu items are unavailable.

Prefer using a submenu to indenting menu items.

Toggled items

Consider using a changeable label that describes an item’s current state.

Include a verb if a changeable label isn’t clear enough.

If necessary, display both menu items instead of one toggled item.

Consider using a checkmark to show that an attribute is currently in effect.

Consider offering a menu item that makes it easy to remove multiple toggled attributes.

Small. A row of four items appears at the top of the menu, above a list that contains the remaining items. For each item in the top row, the menu displays a symbol or icon, but no label.
Medium. A row of three items appears at the top of the menu, above a list that contains the remaining items. For each item in the top row, the menu displays a symbol or icon above a short label.
Large (the default). The menu displays all items in a list.

Choose a small or medium menu layout when it can help streamline people’s choices.

Menus

Menus

Labels

Icons

Organization

Submenus

Toggled items

In-game menus

Platform considerations

iOS, iPadOS

visionOS

Resources

Developer documentation

Change log

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