computer science

Human interface guidelines

Human interface guidelines is a computer science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Human interface guidelines rather than just read about it. In short: Human interface guidelines (HIG) are software development documents which offer application developers a set of recommendations. Their aim is to improve the experience for the users by making application interfaces more intuitive, learnable, and consistent.

Key takeaways

Human interface guidelines belongs to computer science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Human interface guidelines to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Human interface guidelines from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Human interface guidelines (HIG) are software development documents which offer application developers a set of recommendations. Their aim is to improve the experience for the users by making application interfaces more intuitive, learnable, and consistent. Most guides limit themselves to defining a common look and feel for applications in a particular desktop environment. The guides enumerate specific policies. Policies are sometimes based on usability studies of human–computer interaction, but most reflect the platform developers' preferences. The central aim of a HIG is to create a consistent experience across the environment (generally an operating system or desktop environment), including the applications and other tools being used. This means both applying the same visual design and creating consistent access to and behaviour of common elements of the interface – from simple ones such as buttons and icons up to more complex constructions, such as dialog boxes. HIGs are recommendations and advice meant to help developers create better applications. Developers sometimes intentionally choose to break them if they think that the guidelines do not fit their application, or usability testing reveals an advantage in doing so. But in turn, the organization publishing the HIG might withhold endorsement of the application. Mozilla Firefox's user interface, for example, goes against the GNOME project's HIG, which is one of the project's main arguments for including GNOME Web instead of Firefox in the GNOME distribution.

Scope Human interface guidelines often describe the visual design rules, including icon and window design and style. Much less frequently, they specify how user input and interaction mechanisms work. Aside from the detailed rules, guidelines sometimes also make broader suggestions about how to organize and design the application and write user-interface text. HIGs are also done for applications. In this case the HIG will build on a platform HIG by adding the common semantics for a range of application functions.

Cross-platform guidelines In contrast to platform-specific guidelines, cross-platform guidelines aren't tied to a distinct platform. These guidelines make recommendations which should be true on any platform. Since this isn't always possible, cross-platform guidelines may weigh the compliance against the imposed work load.

Examples

Linux, macOS, Unix-like Elementary OS Human Interface Guidelines (Old link Archived 2018-02-17 at the Wayback Machine) GNOME Human Interface Guidelines KDE Human Interface Guidelines Apple Human Interface Guidelines OLPC Human Interface Guidelines Ubuntu App Design Guides Xfce UI Guidelines Motif and CDE 2.1 Style Guide See also PDF (Classic) Macintosh Human Interface Guidelines (Higher quality from developer.apple.com via Wayback Machine, Archived 2003-04-08) Mac OS 8 Human Interface Guidelines (addendum) (via Wayback Machine, Archived 2003-03-15)

Programming languages Java Look and Feel Design Guidelines, and Advanced Topics (2001 - Can't be accessed anymore, but is archived in Wayback Machine)

Portable devices Android Design Designing for Apple watchOS Apple iOS Human Interface Guidelines Apple iPadOS Human Interface Guidelines

Microsoft Windows The Windows Interface: An Application Design Guide (1992) (Windows 3.1) The Windows Interface Guidelines For Software Design (1995) (Windows 95 and NT 4) Microsoft Windows User Experience (1999) (Windows 98, ME, and 2000) Windows XP Design Guidelines (HTML in self-extracting Zip file, Archived 2005-09-23) Windows User Experience Interaction Guidelines (for Windows 7 and Windows Vista) (Archived 2011-12-03, See also PDF) Microsoft Fluent Design System (for Windows 10/11-based devices) Design library for Windows Phone

Miscellaneous Common User Access (IBM platforms including OS/2. Also Windows prior to 3.x versions) Eclipse UI Guidelines wyoGuide, a cross-platform HIG (wxWidgets) ELMER (guidelines for public forms on the internet) Haiku Human Interface Guidelines HarmonyOS Design Guidelines OpenHarmony Universal Design Guidelines

See also Common User Access Graphical user interface builder Human interface device Linux on the desktop Principle of least astonishment Principles of grouping Usability User interface Web accessibility

References

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Human interface guidelines

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Human interface guidelines claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In computer science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Human interface guidelines before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Human interface guidelines ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Human interface guidelines

In research: Human interface guidelines appears in computer science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Human interface guidelines in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Human interface guidelines is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Graphical user interfaces, Human–computer interaction, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Human interface guidelines outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Human interface guidelines in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Human interface guidelines means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Human interface guidelines out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Human interface guidelines in simple terms?

Why does Human interface guidelines matter?

Because it connects several computer science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Human interface guidelines?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Human interface guidelines.