Human Interface Guidelines Reference

Local greppable copy of Apple's Human Interface Guidelines — an on-demand fact lookup, not design direction.

Use it to answer factual questions: what a system component can do, what Apple calls something, accessibility and ergonomic minimums (44pt hit targets, Dynamic Type behavior, contrast), and conventions App Review actually checks.

Visual design in our repos is the designing model's own taste. Consult the HIG for facts, never for aesthetics — it describes what the system provides and requires, not what your screen should look like.

Downloaded Reference Files

All key HIG documentation is available locally (grep-friendly):

Getting Started

Foundations

Patterns

Components - Navigation

Components - Presentation

Components - Controls

Searching the Docs

# Find color guidance
grep -i "semantic" color.md

# Find button styles
grep -i "bordered" buttons.md

# Find haptic patterns
grep -i "notification" playing-haptics.md

# Browse the full HIG index
grep -i "navigation" hig-index.md

Fetching More Docs

1. Search this skill's local .md files first.
2. If the topic is not here, check the other installed Apple skills you have available by their names, descriptions, or SKILL.md frontmatter, then grep their local files. This is faster and uses less context than fetching new docs from the internet.
3. If no installed skill has the page, use the relevant Human Interface Guidelines path with the sosumi.ai Markdown mirror. For example, /design/human-interface-guidelines/buttons maps to https://sosumi.ai/design/human-interface-guidelines/buttons.

Common HIG Doc Paths

Quick Facts

System Button Styles (iOS)

What the system provides out of the box:

• Plain - Text only, minimal visual weight
• Gray - Gray background
• Tinted - Tinted background with accent color
• Filled - Solid background
• Bordered - Outlined with border
• Bordered Prominent - Filled background, high prominence

Haptic Feedback Types

• Selection - Light tap for selection changes
• Impact - Light/medium/heavy/rigid/soft for collisions
• Notification - Success/warning/error for outcomes

Safe Areas (ergonomic facts)

• Content outside safe areas can be clipped by the notch/Dynamic Island, home indicator, or rounded corners
• Interactive elements outside safe areas may be unreachable or intercepted by system gestures
• Backgrounds can extend edge-to-edge without those risks

Sources

Apple Documentation

• Human Interface Guidelines
• Design Resources

WWDC Sessions

• Design for Liquid Glass - WWDC25
• What's new in UIKit - WWDC25