Human Interface Guidelines (Wikipedia)
Wikipedia’s short article on human interface guidelines (HIGs): software development documents that give application developers recommendations for building intuitive, learnable, and consistent interfaces on a given platform. Covers their aim and scope, the recommendation-not-mandate distinction, and a categorized list of real-world examples across desktop, mobile, and legacy platforms.
License: CC BY-SA 4.0 — https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/
Key points
- See Human Interface Guidelines for the definition, aim, and scope of a HIG (visual design rules most commonly; interaction mechanics and UI-text/organization guidance less often), the platform-vs-cross-platform distinction, and the recommendation-not-mandate framing — including the concrete Firefox/GNOME endorsement-withholding example.
- The article’s list of named examples (Apple, GNOME, KDE, Elementary OS, Xfce, Ubuntu, OLPC, Java Look and Feel, Android Design, watchOS/iOS/iPadOS, the Windows guideline lineage through Microsoft Fluent Design System, IBM Common User Access, Eclipse UI Guidelines, Haiku, HarmonyOS) is summarized on the same page rather than reproduced in full.