Speak Intelligently About Your App Anatomy (iOS Glossary)

As a UI designer, communicating your ideas is essential to the job. By defining terms and using a common language, you will improve your ability to talk about your designs and express their functionality to engineers. These definitions are pulled straight from the iOS HIG. The document itself is convoluted with use cases and difficult to search for key terms, so I have created a glossary for easy reference, complete with photo examples. If you download HoverSee extension for Safari or Imagus for Chrome, you can preview the images without leaving the page.

A

Action- Manipulate or view content within the context of another app

Action sheet- Displays a set of choices related to a task the user initiates

Activity- Represents a system-provided or custom task — accessible through an activity view controller — that can work with the current content

Activity Indicator- Shows that a task or process is progressing

Activity ring- Element that shows an individual’s progress toward Move, Exercise, and Stand goals. Apps can enhance in-app health and wellness offerings by displaying an Activity ring

Activity view controller- Presents a transient view listing system-provided and custom tasks that can act on some specified content

Alert- Gives people important information that affects their use of an app or the device

Apple Pay- A mobile payment and digital wallet service that lets users make payments (built in to specific models of Apple products)

B

Badge- A small red oval that displays the number of pending notification items (a badge appears over the upper-right corner of an app’s icon)

Banner- A small translucent view that appears onscreen and then disappears after a few seconds. Users can also see a version of the banner on the lock screen and in the Notifications view of Notification Center. In the banner, iOS displays your notification message and the small version of your app icon

Bars- Contain contextual information that tells users where they are and controls that help users navigate or initiate actions

C

Collection view- Manages an ordered collection of items and presents them in a customizable layout

Contact add button- Lets the user add an existing contact to a text field or other text-based view

Container view controller- Manages and presents its set of child views — or view controllers — in a custom way. Examples of system-defined container view controllers are tab bar view controllers, navigation view controllers, and split view controllers

Content views- Contain app-specific content and can enable behaviors such as scrolling, insertion, deletion, and rearrangement of items.

Controls- Perform actions or display information

Custom keyboard- App Extension that replace the iOS system keyboard with a custom keyboard

D

Date picker- Displays components of date and time, such as hours, minutes, days, and years

Detail disclosure button- Reveals additional details or functionality related to an item

Document provider app extension- Access and manage a repository of files. It remotely stores commonly used document formats and allows other apps to access the documents managed by your app.

H

Homekit- Makes it easy for people to use home automation apps on their iOS devices to control and configure the connected accessories in their homes, regardless of the accessory manufacturer

I

iAd fullscreen banner- A full screen banner occupies most or all of the screen and is usually visible at specific times during the app flow or in specific locations

iAd medium rectangle banner- A medium rectangle banner is similar in behavior to a standard banner and — as with standard banners — you choose where a medium rectangle banner should be displayed

iAd standard banner- A standard banner takes up a small area of the screen and is often visible for as long as the screen is visible. You choose the app screens that should display a standard banner and make room for the banner view in the layout

Image view- Displays one image or an animated series of images

In-app purchase- Lets people buy digital products within your app, in a store that you design

Info Button- Reveals configuration details about an app, sometimes on the back of the current view

L

Label- Displays static text

Local Notification- Scheduled by an app and delivered by iOS on the same device, regardless of whether the app is currently running in the foreground. For example, a calendar or to-do app can schedule a local notification to alert people of an upcoming meeting or due date

M

Mail home screen quick action- Give users a convenient way to perform useful, app-specific actions from the Home screen

Map View- Presents geographical data and supports most of the functionality provided by the built-in Maps app

Modal View- A view presented modally provides self-contained functionality in the context of the current task or workflow

Multitasking- Lets people view more than one app onscreen (on eligible iPad models) and to switch quickly among recently used apps

N

Navigation bar- Gives users an easy way to traverse a hierarchy of data. The navigation bar’s title can show users their current position in the hierarchy; the back button makes it easy to return to the previous level. To learn more, see Navigation Bar

Network Activity Indicator- Appears in the status bar and shows that network activity is occurring

Notification Alert- A standard alert view that appears onscreen and requires user interaction to dismiss. You supply the notification message and either a default action or up to four specific actions that are revealed when users tap the Options button

P

Page control- Indicates the number of open views and which one is currently visible

Page view controller- Uses one of two styles to manage transitions through multipage content — scrolling or page-curl

Passes- Allows you to check in for flights, get and redeem rewards, get in to movies, or redeem coupons. Passes can include useful information like the balance on your coffee card, your coupon’s expiration date, your seat number for a concert, and more. They are located in the Wallet app

Peak and pop peek- Lets users preview an item and perform related actions without leaving their current context. An item indicates that it supports peek by displaying a small rectangular view (sometimes called a hint) in response to a light press

Photo editing app extension- Edit a photo or video within the Photos app

Picker- Displays a set of values from which a user picks one

Popover- A transient view that can be revealed when people tap a control or tap in an onscreen area

Progress toolbar- Shows the progress of a task or process that has a known duration (shown here with the Mail toolbar).

R

Refresh control- A refresh control performs a user-initiated content refresh — typically in a table

Remote notification/ Push notification- Sent by an app’s remote server to the Apple Push Notification service, which pushes the notification to all devices that have the app installed

S

Scope bar- Helps users define the scope of a search. Scope bar is available only in conjunction with a search bar

Scroll view- Helps people see content that is larger than the scroll view’s boundaries

Search bar- Accepts text from users, which can be used as input for a search (shown here with placeholder text)

Segmented control- Can give users a way to see different categories or aspects of the content on the screen; it doesn’t enable navigation to a new screen

ShareApp extension- Post to a website or share content with others

Share screen- A popover where users are given the option to share content via apps or airdrop

Slider- Allows users to make adjustments to a value or process throughout a range of allowed values

Split view controller- A full-screen view controller that manages the presentation of two child view controller

Status bar- Displays important information about the device and the current environment (shown below on iPhone)

Stepper- Increases or decreases a value by a constant amount

Switch- Presents two mutually exclusive choices or states

System button- Performs an app-specific action

T

Tab Bar- Displays several peer categories of content or functionality. A tab bar is a good way to support a flat information architecture and its persistence lets people switch between categories regardless of their current location

Table view- used to display small to large amounts of list style information in a single or multiple columns and with the option to divide several rows into separate sections or to group them. A plain table contains a number of rows that can have a header on the top and a footer after the last row. A grouped table allows you to organize rows in groups. Each group can have a header (best used to describe the context for the group) as well as a footer

Temporary views- Appear briefly to give users important information or additional choices and functionality

Text field- A text field accepts a single line of user input Text viewA text view accepts and displays multiple lines of attributed text

Text view- A text view accepts and displays multiple lines of attributed text

Today widget- App extension-Get a quick update or perform a quick task in the Today view of Notification Center

Toolbar- Contains controls that perform actions related to objects in the screen or view

Toolbar button- Although a toolbar looks similar to a navigation bar or a tab bar, it doesn’t enable navigation. Instead, a toolbar gives users controls that act on the contents of the current screen

W

Web view- A web view is a region that can display rich HTML content

More…

Want to test your knowledge? Quiz yourself on these terms.

Further reading

• Material Design Glossary by Sharon Rosenberg
• iOS Human Interface Guidelines by Apple
• UIKit User Interface Catalog by Apple
• Learn Mobile App Design on Treehouse
• The iOS Design Guide by Ivo Mynttinen