iOS App Design Guidelines for 2024

Whether you're looking for a music app or a news app, the Apple App Store offers millions of options. This level of oversaturation makes it increasingly difficult for app developers and designers to make their apps stand out. Approach? Ensure apps have user-friendly designs that follow iOS design guidelines.

A set of recommendations and instructions for designers and developers, Apple's Human Interface Guidelines (HIG) serve as a roadmap for designing intuitive, responsive, and accessible apps.

Before starting any new app design, review best practices for iOS development and design, core concepts, and more advanced approaches.

Understanding iOS Design Guidelines Principles

Clarity, deference, depth, and consistency are the four basic principles that developers must apply when developing iOS apps. Following these principles allows them to achieve design excellence and comply with App Store rules, ensuring the app is published successfully.

Clarity

Clarity is essential in UX/UI design. It ensures intuitive, easy-to-use interactions that users can navigate without confusion or frustration. iOS apps should have a clean, organized layout, ample white space, and as few elements as possible to avoid overwhelming users. To achieve clarity in iOS app design, developers must implement:

• Clear labels and instructions: Developers should use simple, concise, and descriptive language for labels and instructions. It's important to avoid jargon to prevent users from guessing what certain features do.
• Simple icons and symbols: Designers should use common, easily identifiable symbols in their designs.
• Readable typography: App designs should use fonts that are easy to read at varying sizes, across device versions, and in different contexts.
• Clear visual hierarchy: Hierarchy design allows users to understand the relative importance between elements in an application. For example, designers may choose to make important elements bigger or bolder, while making more trivial details smaller or lighter.
• White space: Negative space between offered elements makes apps more visually appealing, accessible, and easier to navigate.

Deference

In UI design, deference ensures users know how to interact with content through a clean interface with fluid movements. A clean interface minimizes distractions to help keep attention focused on more essential elements.

Fluid movements make navigation a seamless and intuitive process. Depth is a design aspect that increases deference by creating a visual hierarchy. This helps users distinguish between supporting content and primary actions. For example, subtle layers and shadows provide some context to create more intuitive interactions.

Depth

Depth plays a key role in infusing vitality into an application. It directs the user's attention through visual cues, including blurs, transparency, and shadows, to create visual layers and realistic movements.

Depth creates a sense of hierarchy in an app's UI through added dimension. Using this design principle is also a great way to help users separate interactive elements from static objects to make the app easier to use.

Playing with shadows to lift buttons and other elements “off-screen” with a hover effect is a great example of effectively employing depth. Scaling helps signify importance and layers visual elements to create a three-dimensional sense of space.

Consistency

Consistency is key when designing a native iOS app. Maintaining uniformity, cohesion, and a consistent design language throughout the app interface allows for a seamless user experience.

This important principle gives designers a way to ensure users feel familiar with the app, even during their first use. Consistency is a key factor in reducing users' learning curves, allowing them to navigate applications quickly and easily.

It also increases predictability, reinforces brand identity, promotes familiarity and trust, and allows developers to create intuitive, easy-to-use apps. Some ways to ensure consistency across an application include:

• Consistency of UI elements: UI elements must display a consistent pattern throughout the application. Users must be able to predict the outcome of tapping a certain icon because this action must always lead to the same result.
• Typography and color consistency: Developers should use the same fonts, font size, and colors across all screens. This is essential to maintain a sense of continuity, as well as highlighting the importance of different elements of the text.
• Interaction consistency: Just as UI elements must behave consistently, so must user interactions. For example, if a specific gesture (i.e. swiping right) has a certain effect on one screen, it should always have the same effect across the entire app.
• iOS design pattern consistency: When creating a new app, developers should keep in mind broader design patterns that users are familiar with when using other iOS apps. This will make the app more intuitive and easier to navigate.

Layout and Structure

One of the most important considerations when outlining a plan for creating an iOS app is its organization and structure. This includes thinking about app navigation, interface components, typography, and color schemes.

Apple offers a wide variety of suggestions and controls that developers can use to quickly build interfaces. Sometimes, though, it might make sense to “break the rules” and opt for a custom UI.

Navigation

An intuitive and effective navigation system is the foundation of any good iOS app. It ensures that users can easily navigate through the different sections and features of the app without any confusion.

There are several navigation models to choose from, such as hierarchical, flat, and content or experience-driven navigation. However, designers should create clear navigation paths, regardless of the template selected, using familiar iOS patterns like bars.

Bars are a staple of iOS interfaces and can indicate and communicate a wide variety of information, from an app's status to the current time. Some common types of bars found in iOS apps include:

• Status bar: This bar is typically located at the top of the screen and displays information about your device, such as battery life and internet connectivity. Designers may choose to hide the status bar when creating an app (especially if it distracts them from the app's content). However, they should consider that users may want to know the status of their Wi-Fi or Bluetooth connection while using the app.
• Navigation bar: Typically, the navigation bar appears just below the status bar, with a back button on the left and a centered title. It allows users to explore the application hierarchy and navigate through its different views.
• Search bar: A search bar allows users to search for specific content within an app. It should always contain placeholder text and a clear button to delete any user-entered text.
• Tab bar: This global navigation control allows users to quickly navigate between different views of an application. Generally located on the bottom edge of the screen, the tab bar should always follow iOS standards to avoid user confusion with an unfamiliar design.

Interface elements

Common iOS interface components such as buttons, switches, sliders, and labels are the building blocks of any app's interface. The way developers position, style, and customize these elements has a huge impact on how users perceive and interact with the app.

iOS has a large library with many different types of iOS UI components. Some of the most popular include:

• Buttons: One of the most recognizable and widely used controls, buttons allow users to select different options within an application. Designers should use customization techniques to visually represent the different states of a button (default, selected, disabled, and others).
• Selectors: Selectors allow users to select a value from a list. A good example of a picker component is the date picker, a tool that asks users to scroll through a list of numbers and months to select a date.
• Sliders: These elements involve selecting an estimated, but not exact, value from a range of allowed values. Developers often use sliders to help users adjust sound volume or screen brightness settings.
• Steps: Steppers contain two segmented buttons that users must select to enter a specific value from a small range of available values.
• Switches: Used for binary configurations, switches allow users to toggle between two states: on and off. A good example of this type of component is a Wi-Fi configuration.

Developers should consider creating custom interface components, not just for aesthetic reasons, but also to improve usability and create a unique experience for users. Good customization is a great way to help any iOS app stand out in today's market.

Typography

Good typography is necessary to establish any visually appealing language and plays a significant role in engagement. Designers use it to highlight essential content, convey brand identity, and clarify hierarchical information.

The selected font should make the text legible and easy to read. While decorative fonts can be attractive, they can also detract from readability, especially on smaller screens.

Apple's San Francisco is the recommended font for iOS. It's easy to read on small screens, which is ideal for app design, especially for mobile device screens. San Francisco comes in two versions: SF Pro Display and SF Pro Text. The first is better for UI components, while the second features wider spacing to better suit longer texts.

Developers can still customize the typography of their apps, but there are a few things they should consider. Using no more than two different fonts keeps interfaces simple and organized. Within the same font style, developers should use different sizes and weights to differentiate titles, headings, body text, subtitles, and other text effects. It's important to keep font sizes consistent throughout your app.

Color

At first glance, colors mainly contribute to the overall appearance of an app. However, they have a much deeper impact, evoking emotions in the user, aiding navigation and reinforcing the brand's identity.

There are certain sets of semantic colors for iOS, subdivided into color variants such as Primary, Secondary, and Tertiary. They help distinguish content based on a hierarchical system.

Primary colors are the conveyors of personality, displayed on most screens and used to indicate primary actions. Secondary colors support primary colors and offer variety and depth to the overall design. Tertiary colors (often called accent colors) highlight important actions and controls. Some iOS semantic colors and their respective variants include:

• Background colors: These colors allow the differentiation of elements in the interface. Primary colors are typically for the app's overview or its main background. The secondary color is used to group elements in the overview. Tertiary color groups content into secondary elements.
• Fill colors: Designers use fill colors for UI elements that also allow the background color to show through. The variants share the same color value with different opacity levels depending on the size of the element. Tertiary colors are a common choice for larger shapes like buttons or search bars.
• Label colors: Labels have color variants and have their own level of transparency, depending on the level of importance of the information presented. The primary color of the label highlights important text (titles and headlines). Secondary colors display captions or supporting information. Tertiary colors accentuate text or smaller content that is not essential to the user's understanding of the application.

iOS offers other color schemes, such as separator colors and functional colors. Separator colors refer to a thin horizontal line used to visually separate groups of different content, often in table views, collection views, and other parts of the interface.

Functional colors indicate the status of different elements, providing context for the user. For example, green typically indicates a success state, yellow or orange indicates a warning or alert state, and red indicates an error state.

When choosing a color palette, consistency is key. Designers should select variants that align with their brand and the overall purpose of the app. Following Apple's color guidelines ensures that your colors fit harmoniously into the iOS ecosystem.

User interaction

The main factors that influence user engagement are user experience and user interface design. UX/UI design covers areas such as touch mechanics, accessibility, feedback, and animation and movement.

Touch mechanics

User interactions and gestures are important to an app's UI. It's important to consider these features when developing an easy-to-use iOS app, as they can have a huge impact on the user experience. Intuitive gestures like tapping or swiping to perform certain tasks require consistency across the app. They should also be easy to learn and remember, making the app navigation experience easier.

iOS has some unique gestures, like allowing users to switch between pages by swiping left and right. When the iPhone X was released, Apple removed the home button. This means that navigation in the iOS app is completely facilitated by the use of finger movements. For example, to close apps or exit a selected image, iOS users simply swipe up on the screen.

When developing an iOS app, it's important to keep these unique iOS gestures in mind. Devoted iPhone users will have well-established muscle memory for certain gestures. Best practices for interactions and gestures in iOS app design include:

• Respecting the current mental model: Designers should conduct extensive research into the gestures their user personas are most comfortable making. For example, if most users scroll vertically down in an app, that's the interaction developers should apply.
• Providing feedback for each gesture: Users need to know that their gesture has been recorded. For example, whenever your application loads a form page, it should display a progress bar, spinner, or any icon that shows users that their action is in progress.
• Not interfering with system gestures: iOS app gestures should not interfere with the device's general system gestures. Developers should avoid creating gestures initiated at the edges of the screen, as they may trigger the device's navigation system.
• Prompting gestures instead of text input: Gestures reduce users' cognitive effort when compared to text input. One example where developers can reduce interaction effort is by allowing users to enter their date of birth by scrolling through a drop-down menu instead of typing it manually.

Accessibility

Accessibility design ensures that all of an app's features are usable and accessible, including for people with disabilities. It is a crucial aspect of iOS app design that developers must take into consideration when creating intuitive, operable, and robust interfaces.

Accessible iOS apps accommodate diverse users and their visual, motor, cognitive, and auditory needs. This involves providing a wide range of assistive technologies and elements, from alternative text for images to effective color contrast. Here are some accessibility features that developers should consider when designing an iOS app:

• Voiceover: This is a screen reading feature that describes aloud what is happening on the screen. When enabled, VoiceOver provides spoken descriptions of everything present in the application interface. Developers should consider creating iPhone apps with VoiceOver support to help visually impaired users.
• Dynamic Type: With this feature, users can easily adjust the size of the text that appears on the screen, ensuring that it is readable for all users.
• Clear, high-contrast text: iOS app designers should adopt colors that contrast well with the app's background. This ensures that colorblind and low vision users can still read comfortably enough to navigate and enjoy the app.
• Captions and descriptions for media: For apps with video content, developers must provide clear captions for dialogue, sound effects, and audio descriptions. This ensures that the application is accessible to users with hearing or visual impairments.
• Logical layout and navigation: Adopting standard iOS interface elements and patterns gives users with cognitive disabilities a sense of familiarity and consistency. These users can easily predict how to navigate the app based on their experience with other iOS apps.

Opinion

When using an iOS app, users want to know if their interactions produce results. Feedback in UI design provides users with responses to their actions. Recognizing user interactions with visual or sensory feedback is crucial to building trust in the app and its functionality.

Examples of effective feedback implementation include:

• Visual feedback: This is a visual confirmation that the application has registered the given input. An example is buttons that change color when pressed.
• Haptic feedback : Apps that incorporate Apple's Haptic Engine can provide users with a slight vibration when performing certain actions.
• Loading indicators: These indicators are useful for actions that take time to complete and inform users that a certain process is in progress.
• Error Messages: Error messages are a great way to convey to users any issues that may be occurring and provide possible solutions.
• Action confirmation: These confirmations are particularly useful for confirming the successful completion of actions that change data in the application, such as a pop-up or success message.

Animation and Movement

Subtle animations are a great way to communicate and enhance feedback. Designers take advantage of these effects to show users how things change in the app and what will happen when they perform certain actions. They add them on purpose to support the overall user experience without overshadowing the rest of the design.

Realistic and reliable movements and animations help users understand how an app works. Inaccurate animations that simply don't make sense can disorient them. Animations should also be brief and precise to convey information more effectively.

Another important factor to consider is that not every user will like experimenting with movement within an app. You should make motions optional and avoid using them as the only way to provide feedback and convey important information to users.

Purposeful animation

Users tend to prefer an app with attractive and striking animations. Features improve user engagement and interaction, provide narrative depth, and introduce dynamism and exuberance to the overall user experience.

Specific animations and custom transitions make iOS apps more inviting and interactive. Integrating intentional shifts and visual movements when switching between screens is a great example of delivering a personalized user experience.

User control and comfort

It's important that all users have full control over their interactions with an app. Not all users will like an app's animations, so you should consider their needs. For example, they may be sensitive to excessive motion effects.

Designers should always provide alternatives for users to access the same information and functionality without having to rely on animations, as they may want to reduce or disable them completely.

iOS offers a feature called Reduce Motion that allows users to disable large, complex animations, making design more accessible and inclusive. Designers must also respect the user's system settings and preferences.

Feedback and interaction

Animations are not just a matter of aesthetics. They improve the functionality and usability of mobile apps by providing visual cues and immediate feedback to users.

Microinteractions are a common type of interaction in applications. Small, subtle animations occur whenever a user taps a button or swipes the screen. They make the interface feel lively and responsive, improving the overall user experience.

Advanced Design Techniques

Once developers have decided on the basics of their iPhone apps, they should consider advanced design approaches. This could include exploring dark mode themes, augmented reality, machine learning, and more.

Dark Mode

Dark mode is an iOS appearance setting that automatically applies a dark color palette to every screen, menu, and control in an app. It provides users with a more comfortable experience when exploring an app in a low-light environment.

When designing iPhone apps, designers should know that some users choose dark mode as the device's default setting. This means they expect all apps to respect this preference. Designers should create a version of their app suited to iOS's dark mode, complete with a dark color palette and contrasting elements.

Switching from the default theme to dark mode should happen automatically as soon as the user changes the system settings. Developers should avoid offering in-app appearance settings because this often means that the app will not automatically respond to the system-wide appearance choice.

Augmented reality

Augmented reality (AR) allows developers to create immersive experiences that seamlessly combine virtual objects with the real world. It is now a crucial element of iOS apps thanks to its recent advancements.

Apple's ARKit, an AR framework, allows developers to create immersive, immersive AR experiences where users can combine digital objects with real-world information.

This framework uses the devices' sensors to detect the user's environment and place virtual elements in the real world. It supports a multitude of AR experiences, from motion and face tracking to environmental recognition and understanding.

Users should be able to use the entire screen for greater immersion, which means designers should avoid cluttering the screen with controls and text. If necessary, teams can set additional information and commands to a consistent location in the virtual world.

Virtual objects and their placements must be as realistic as possible. The iOS app must include objects with realistic textures, simulate camera grain, and allow users to size and position objects on available surfaces detected in their surroundings.

For example, audio and haptic feedback are great feedback mechanisms in AR-based experiences. They help confirm whether a virtual object has been placed correctly on a physical surface. Developers should consider implementing these types of features to increase user interaction with the application.

It's also important for developers to communicate application requirements, explaining to users how the physical environment can impact the AR experience.

Motion-based AR experiences need time to adjust properly. Apps that encourage users to move should give users some time to adapt to the experience and then gradually encourage movement to avoid overwhelming users.

Machine Learning

Machine learning (ML) is a powerful tool that enables teams to create intelligent, adaptable applications. ML offers versatile possibilities, including image recognition capabilities and content recommendation systems. Overall, ML-based applications help users accomplish more with less effort.

Apple's Core ML tool makes it simple for developers to integrate ML technology into applications. Using the tool, they can incorporate trained ML models that offer features such as image classification, natural language processing, and object detection.

There are some challenges to take into account, such as:

• Privacy and data security concerns: Systems are collecting increasing amounts of personal data. It is important to ensure the privacy and security of user data in iOS apps. This involves implementing robust end-to-end encryption, ensuring compliance with data protection regulations, and regularly monitoring and updating security protocols.
• User trust: Likewise, Al and ML are still controversial due to privacy concerns. To help users feel more comfortable using the app, companies should offer transparency into the app's features and data collection practices and provide privacy setting options.
• Limited computing resources: Mobile devices have limited available computing resources, which can negatively impact the performance of ML algorithms. Techniques such as quantization, weight sharing and pruning can help with resource optimization.

User testing: refining UX and UI elements

User testing involves having real users evaluate the app's functionalities and identify usability issues before launch. There are a few different ways iOS app developers can implement user testing, depending on their needs and goals:

• A/B Testing: Developers create two versions of a specific feature and see which one works better with different users. This method is particularly useful whenever developers have multiple design solutions.
• Beta testing: Beta testing involves releasing a working version of the iOS app to a small group of users to identify bugs or other major issues before the app's official release. Developers must set clear goals, recruit a diverse group of representative users, and create scenarios that simulate real-world situations.
• Surveys and feedback forms: Surveys and feedback forms allow developers to collect a wealth of information, from general impressions of the app to deeper thoughts on specific features or issues. This method is useful in several contexts, such as after deploying a major application update.
• Analytics: Using analytics tools, developers collect data about how users are interacting with their iOS apps. They can determine which features are most popular, how much time users spend in the app, what time of day they interact with it the most, and more.

Conclusion

Designing iOS apps involves more than just putting together a pretty picture. Successful design increases user satisfaction with an intuitive, easy-to-use and accessible UI/UX. It must meet the needs of the application users and at the same time reflect the company's brand.

Building applications that meet and exceed user expectations requires a lot of work and research before creating any project. Apple's HIG and iOS design guidelines, along with available accessibility guidelines, streamline this process. These guidelines offer tips and ideas for creating apps that are accessible and functional, and that stand out in the competitive Apple App Store.

Common questions

What are the Human Interface Guidelines (HIG) for iOS app development?

Apple's Human Interface Guidelines (HIG) are a set of design guidelines for creating consistent, intuitive, easy-to-use, and visually appealing apps for Apple's various platforms.

How do you ensure your app is accessible to everyone?

To ensure an app is accessible to everyone, an iOS app developer must design with inclusivity in mind and implement important accessibility features like VoiceOver and Dynamic Type. They should also test and optimize their app for assistive technologies across all user demographics.

What are the best practices for implementing Dark Mode?

There are several best practices for implementing Dark Mode in iOS design. This includes providing clear visual contrast, prioritizing comfort and readability, and avoiding in-app appearance settings. You should also thoroughly test light and dark modes in various environments to ensure a seamless user experience.

How can animations improve user experience in iOS apps?

Animations make iOS apps feel elevated and sophisticated. However, they are much more than an aesthetic feature. They can also provide informative feedback to users, improving usability and engagement.

How does Apple's ARKit improve app design?

Apple's ARKit allows users to combine 3D digital objects and animations with the real-world environment through the device's camera. By bridging the virtual and physical worlds through immersive and interactive experiences, ARKit enhances application design by elevating user interactions.

What is the role of user feedback in the iOS app design process?

User feedback plays an important role in the iOS app design process. It helps designers better understand user needs and identify problems. This allows them to refine the app's functionality and user interface.

What role do web browsers play in iOS app design?

Integrating web browsers into iOS apps is important to ensure that web content is displayed directly in the app. To ensure safe and familiar in-app web browsing capabilities, use Safari View Controller. This helps maintain user confidence and consistency.

What does the Settings app do on an iOS device?

The Settings app on an iOS device allows the user to configure system preferences and app settings. Users can also manage privacy and security options and control various device features from a centralized location.

What is the role of an app icon in iOS design?

An app icon plays an important role in iOS design. This icon provides the first visual impression of the app and reflects your brand identity. It can help attract users and encourage them to download the app. It also contributes to app discovery on the App Store.

Are there design guidelines for creating an Android version of an iOS app?

Yes, Google's Material Design guidelines are the design guidelines for creating an Android version of an iOS app. These guidelines focus on consistency, intuitive navigation, and custom visual language for Android devices.

What design guidelines should I follow when creating an iOS email app?

When creating an iOS email app, you must follow Apple's Human Interface Guidelines (HIG). These guidelines focus on intuitive navigation, accessible touch points, clear typography, and seamless integration with system features.