Symbian Design Guidelines

These guidelines discuss how to design fresh-looking mobile applications that fit nicely with the native look and feel of the Symbian platform. Developers who are designing user experiences and building applications for Symbian will benefit from these guidelines. We recommend that you follow these guidelines for all S^3, Symbian Anna, and Symbian Belle applications from now on.

 The component descriptions and patterns in this library apply specifically to the Qt Quick Components for Symbian. If you are creating a custom UI, we recommend that you align your designs with these guidelines.

Symbian Belle introduces a number of changes in the design and user experience. Qt Quick Components for Symbian, available in the latest Qt SDK, follow these Symbian design guidelines. By using Qt Quick Components, applications will not only have a fresh new look, but will also comply with the evolving Symbian style. The Qt Quick Components are optimised for handheld devices with small screens. Previous QWidget-based components were designed for desktop applications, and are not recommended for applications targeting Symbian devices.

Today, deploying apps that follow these guidelines means that your app will differ slightly from those that consumers currently have installed on their Symbian device. The change is for the better, though — it includes a more modern design and will match the user’s experience of future Symbian devices. We recommend that you use these guidelines for all S^3, Anna, and Belle applications.

The Symbian Design Guidelines offer an overall framework model and are not meant to replace detailed specifications. They contain interaction patterns as well as common UI component descriptions to guide design and development. The guidelines do not enforce a style, but instead aim at matching the Symbian look and feel. Symbian Design Guidelines are subject to continuous evolution — this is a living library which takes design alignments into account.

Note: The Symbian^3 UI Style Guide is still available if you wish to specifically target S^3 and/or Anna devices.

These Symbian Design Guidelines should be seen as a style evolution, not a revolution. Most new applications for Symbian are developed with Qt; here we will cover only Qt Quick Components for Symbian. Although most Symbian components have counterparts in Qt Quick, not all of them have been adapted. Anything that is missing will have to be created from scratch. If you can't find what you’re looking for directly, you are encouraged to browse through the new Qt Quick Components and look for an alternative. For more detailed information on the differences between the component offerings, see the UI migration from native S^3 to Qt Quick Components section in the Design and User Experience Library.

What to consider when designing for Symbian

Applications should always follow basic design principles (including visual and motion) and consider the framework rules documented in these design guidelines. When designing and developing your application for Symbian, consider the following mobile design fundamentals:

• Keep it simple and easy to use.  Make it obvious what your application does and how it works.
• Distribute functions appropriately. The most important functions should be in the toolbar; secondary functions should be in the content area or view menu; and, when appropriate, place functions in the object menu. Avoid duplicating the same function in different views.
• Scroll only repeating content. Do not hide distinct functions below the fold, making them undiscoverable.
• Use simple and concise language, and only truncate UI text when absolutely necessary. Avoid using abbreviations in UI text because they do not localise.
• Be consistent with core interactions. Do not create behaviours that conflict with the pattern guidelines.
• It should be possible to reverse most actions, so prompts are only used for unexpected events or irreversible actions.
• Think carefully before making exceptions to overall design rules (for example, full-screen cases).