iOS Developer Library — Pre-Release

Developer

Apple Watch Human Interface Guidelines

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Notifications

Notifications on Apple Watch facilitate quick, lightweight interactions for local and remote notifications. These interactions occur in two stages, which are managed using the Short Look and Long Look interfaces. The Short Look interface appears when a local or remote notification first arrives and needs to be presented to the user. The Short Look provides a discreet, minimal amount of information—preserving a degree of privacy. If the wearer lowers his or her wrist, the Short Look interface disappears. The Long Look interface appears when the wearer’s wrist remains raised or when the user taps the Short Look interface. It provides more detailed information and more functionality—and it must be actively dismissed by the wearer.

Be sensitive to the frequency with which you send notifications to users. Users might perceive frequent notifications as annoying and disable notifications for your app on Apple Watch. Always make sure notifications are relevant to what the user wants.

Short Look Notifications

Short Looks let the user know which app received a notification and are visible only briefly. The Short Look interface is template-based and contains the app name, app icon, and the title string from the accompanying notification. The system displays the app name using the app’s key color.

image: ../Art/shortlook_calendar_2x.png

Keep titles short and focused. The space available for displaying titles is minimal, so keep them brief and to the point. Titles do not provide detail about the notification. They only provide a brief hint about what the notification is about.

Custom Long Look Notifications

Long Looks provide more detail about an incoming notification. The system provides a default long look appearance but apps can customize the Long Look to incorporate custom graphics and branding. The structure of the Long Look interface is the same for all apps. The system overlays the app icon and app name on top of a sash area, which blurs the content underneath it. The system also adds a Dismiss button and any app-defined action buttons at the end of the notification. In between is your custom content.

image: ../Art/longlook_calendar_2x.png

App content can underlap the sash or start just below it. Use the underlapping option for photos and other graphical content. Start text content below the sash area.

image: ../Art/notification_long_content_2x.png

For custom Long Look interfaces, apps must provide a static interface and may optionally provide a dynamic interface. The dynamic interface is more configurable than the static interface but both display the same notification type using your graphics and branding. The static interface provides a fallback position in cases where the dynamic interface is unavailable.

Long look notifications can display up to four custom action buttons. Apple Watch leverages the interactive notifications registered by your iOS app to display action buttons in the Long Look interface. These action buttons are displayed automatically based on the notification’s category.

The Dismiss button is always present. This button is in addition to the four action buttons you provide.

Configure the sash color to match your branding. The color and opacity of the sash area are configurable in your custom interfaces.

For information about static and dynamic interfaces, and about how to configure action buttons, see Apple Watch Programming Guide.