Design guidelines for home tabs

Home tabs are persistent spaces customizable on a per-user basis. They are a primary surface to present your app’s core functionality and settings, as well as information your user is most likely interested in.

Display personalized information

Present users information that is most relevant for them. For example, if you’re building a ticketing app, users will likely want to see open tickets assigned to them. Think about how to simply organize information for users in an customized, accessible way.

Create visual hierarchies

The most important content should shine at the top of your home tab. This includes entry points to invoke your app’s core functionality alongside useful information that users will want to access most often. Employ the use content dividers when considering what actions and information is important to the user, versus what could be expressed as secondary, or hidden behind a modal.

Surface app settings

A good rule of thumb is to present app settings in your home tab behind a button. Settings could include the frequency or delivery time of notifications, toggling app features, or unlinking and linking an individual user to your third-party service. Settings are specific to your app, and different users may have specialized settings — for example, admins may be able to control workspace-wide settings whereas standard users should not have access to this.

Curate call-to-actions

To avoid bombarding a user with too many call-to-actions, consider limiting the amount of actions a user can take in your home tab. If actions are essential to your app’s experience, look into overflow menus to help hide the less-essential actions and focus on what the majority of your users will want to accomplish within your home tab.

Make the most important call-to-actions the most visible.