Offering help

Patterns
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Best practices

Let your app’s tasks inform the types of help people might need.

Use relevant and consistent language and images in your help content.

Make sure all help content is inclusive.

Avoid bloating your help content by explaining how standard components or patterns work.

Creating tips

Use the most appropriate tip type for your app’s user interface.

Use tips for simple features.

Make tips short, actionable, and engaging.

Define rules to help ensure your tips reach the intended audience.

If there’s an image or symbol that people associate with the feature, consider including it in the tip, and prefer the filled variant.

Use buttons to direct people to information or options.

Platform considerations

macOS, visionOS

Describe only the control that people indicate interest in.

Explain the action or task the control initiates.

In general, avoid repeating a control’s name in its tooltip.

Be brief.

Use sentence case.

Consider offering context-sensitive tooltips.


For the complete guidance, including worked examples and illustrations, see the canonical page: https://developer.apple.com/design/human-interface-guidelines/offering-help

Apple HIG text and imagery are © Apple Inc. This page is a structured index of Apple’s canonical documentation (snapshot 2025-02-02), provided for quick reference and AI-agent consumption — it isn’t affiliated with or endorsed by Apple. Read the original at developer.apple.com (opens in new tab).

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