Allan Day
aday@gnome.org
Christian Kirbach
christian.kirbach@gmail.com 2014

# Essentials

This section of the Human Interface Guidelines covers essential themes. It provides an initial starting point when designing an application, as well as common design guidelines that are necessary when using all the patterns and user interface elements found in later sections.

# Erste Schritte

Design principles | General design guidelines and advice.
Application basics | Basic application behavior and characteristics.
Compatibility | Using the HIG for cross-platform or GNOME 2 style applications.

# Common guidelines

Visual layout | Arranging elements within user interfaces.
Writing style | Writing text for your user interface, including capitalization rules.
Icons and artwork | Guidelines on selecting and creating icons.
Typography | Advice on font sizes, weights and styles, as well as special characters.
Pointer and touch input | Mouse, touchpad and touchscreen interaction.
Keyboard input | Keyboard navigation, access and shortcut keys.