6 Quick Tips to Level Up Your visionOS App UI Design

I reviewed more than 100 visionOS apps in the Apple Vision Pro App Store — including the top apps in each category — to compile this list of actions you can take as a UX designer or developer to boost your app’s visual design, make it more usable, and look professional:

1. Constrain Your Colors: Unlike iOS, where you can control your app’s background, you will not know the environment your app will launch into. Apps with too many color accents may clash with your environment and disrupt the generally “quiet” feel of the default glass background. (I like to think of visionOS apps being “quiet” by default, and only yell with color when absolutely necessary.) In addition, colored text may be more difficult to read relative to black or white text.
2. Use Common System Icons: For example, in one app I saw a “See Video in full screen” button (which should also be fully Camel Case IMO). Rather than text, the two-arrow icon could’ve been used. This would match other apps, including Apple’s, that use this icon to toggle full-screen video.
3. Treat Windows Like Transactions: When your app requires multiple windows open at the same time, it can become harder for people to manage and find information – especially when they have multiple apps open. Consider a primary main window that only spawns additional windows for a specific, transient purpose, such as viewing details of a specific item.
4. Right-size Windows: The biggest-yet-easiest fix you can do is to fit window size to content. The most frequent issue I saw in my review were windows set to the default window size, which was too large for the content it contained. In addition, window resizing behavior should match the type of content presented.
5. Non-spatial App Icons: While this has no impact on usability, it puzzles me why some apps used flat icons instead of the multi-level layering. It may seem like a trivial detail, but attention to details reflects the level of craft put into your visionOS app.
6. Stick to Common Interaction Patterns Whenever Possible: Since spatial computing is such a new interaction paradigm, it’s best to keep interactions simple, and avoid custom patterns that make it more complex to interact directly with objects on screen. If you must implement a unique custom interaction pattern, test it on device to make sure it is both necessary and appropriate for people’s needs.
   

If you are new to visionOS, the foundational design videos from WWDC23 and WWDC24 cover various aspects of designing apps for Apple Vision Pro.