| name | ios-hig-design-guide |
| category | design |
| description | Build, update, and apply iOS design specifications using Apple Human Interface Guidelines (HIG) source data. Use when a task asks for iOS UI/UX rules, Apple design standards, component behavior, accessibility constraints, interaction patterns, or feature-level design-spec writing grounded in official HIG pages. |
iOS HIG Design Guide
Use this skill to produce iOS design recommendations that stay close to official Apple guidance.
Quick start
- Sync official sources.
- Read only relevant sections.
- Produce a feature-specific spec (not a generic style dump).
Run:
python3 scripts/sync_apple_hig_sources.py --skill-dir .
Source of truth
- Full raw index with links and abstracts:
references/apple-hig-ios-raw.md
- Consolidated text dump of all downloaded pages:
references/apple-hig-ios-fulltext.md
- Curated text dump for iOS spec writing:
references/apple-hig-ios-curated.md
- Workflow for selecting relevant HIG pages:
references/ios-design-spec-workflow.md
- Per-page JSON sources:
references/raw/pages/design/human-interface-guidelines/*.json
- Crawl metadata and fetch status:
references/raw/catalog.json
Workflow
1) Sync and verify
- Run sync script before answering "latest" or "current" requests.
- Confirm
download_error is 0 in references/raw/catalog.json.
- If errors exist, report failed paths and continue with successfully downloaded pages.
2) Narrow scope
- Start from
/design/human-interface-guidelines/designing-for-ios.
- Add only sections directly related to the requested feature.
- Prioritize foundational constraints (accessibility, layout, typography, color, writing, privacy).
- Prefer
references/apple-hig-ios-curated.md for day-to-day use; use full dump only when needed.
3) Extract constraints
For each selected page, pull concrete rules into implementable statements:
- When to use component/pattern
- Required states (loading, empty, error, destructive confirmation)
- Accessibility behavior (labels, hints, touch target, dynamic type)
- Localization/layout behavior (RTL, truncation, multiline)
- Platform-specific caveats (iOS-only vs cross-platform)
4) Produce deliverable
Default output structure:
- Feature goal and user scenario
- Information architecture and screen inventory
- Interaction and state model
- Component specification
- Accessibility and localization checklist
- Open questions and tradeoffs
Output style rules
- Cite source page paths for each major rule.
- Translate HIG guidance into actionable product decisions.
- Avoid copying large raw passages.
- Mark inferred recommendations explicitly as inference.
Maintenance
- Re-run sync script whenever Apple updates HIG content.
- Keep generated raw files in
references/; do not hand-edit generated outputs.
- Update this SKILL.md only for workflow or quality improvements.
