14 DAY TRIAL // Upon releasing iOS 7 last year, Apple unleashed a powerful document containing the iOS Human Interface Guidelines for developers. Starting today, anyone can download the guidelines as a free iBook for their Mac or iDevice, regardless of whether or not they code for a living.
“Create a superlative user experience that's founded on Apple's design principles and guidelines,” reads the book’s description. “This book is available for download with iBooks on your Mac or iOS device, and with iTunes on your computer,” Apple adds. “Books can be read with iBooks on your Mac or iOS device.”
To view the book, you must have an iOS device with iBooks 1.5 and iOS 4.3.3 or later installed. Desktop users need a Mac with iBooks 1.0 or later and OS X 10.9 or later.
The guidelines explain what you can expect: themes, iconography, translucency, tips and tricks for using the entire screen real estate, recommendations to make a design that allows the user to focus on the content, rather than on the interface, etc.
The flat iOS 7 design embodies deference, where “the UI helps users understand and interact with the content, but never competes with it,” according to Apple. It also emphasizes clarity, with the Mac maker noting that “Text is legible at every size, icons are precise and lucid, adornments are subtle and appropriate, and a sharpened focus on functionality motivates the design.”
Soon-to-be app sellers are also encouraged to use visual layers and realistic motion to “impart vitality and heighten users’ delight and understanding.”
“Although crisp, beautiful UI and fluid motion are highlights of the iOS 7 experience, the user’s content is at its heart,” the company adds, elaborating on deferring to content. “Here are some ways to make sure that your designs elevate functionality and defer to the user’s content.”
Apple starts with taking advantage of the whole screen and recommends that developers “Reconsider the use of insets and visual frames and—instead—let the content extend to the edges of the screen.”
“Weather is a great example of this approach: The beautiful, full-screen depiction of a location’s current weather instantly conveys the most important information, with room to spare for hourly data,” the company explains.
Every design aspect is detailed in a way that ensures that even the most inexperienced developers can hop aboard the iOS 7 train and create a compelling app. Download the iOS Human Interface Guidelines from the iBooks Store and enjoy.