Design Shortcuts for Spotlight

Spotlight lets you do any search, and now short cuts will show up next to your app in the search window

Ideation

  • Focus on essentials, habitual actions in your app.
  • Don’t be compelled to have a lot of shortcuts
  • Design them to be predictable and personal
    • Also personalize them based on decisions your users do – like pinned values in your app, should be pinned in the shortcuts

Creation

  • Every shortcut is either an action or entity (verb or noun)
  • All actions are an SF Symbol in the the search, you entities should an icon shape
  • Be brief on the titles, yet understood
  • Think beyond just the shape, include other visual clues 
  • Color -you can decide to add a solid or gradient to add as complementing color, or use a secondary tint color
  • Behavior – App Launch, Live Activity, or Snippet  – launch is usually the right action.  Design Dynamic Live Activities WWDC23 is a good session
    • If you do a snippet you may want to present it and then go into your app

Discovery

  • To make your app short cut discoverable – add synonyms of your shortcut phrase, provide a handful of these.