--- title: Announcing the App Design Guides description: We’re very excited to have just released the first version of the App Design Guides, the go-to destination to design and build beautiful and usable apps for Ubuntu on phones! There is also a very handy Ubuntu user interface toolkit preview for developers. We believe technology should be available to everyone. Going mobile is a big […] url: https://canonical.com/blog/announcing-the-app-design-guides?format=md --- 1. [Blog](https://canonical.com/blog) 2. Article --- [Canonical](https://canonical.com/blog/author/canonical "More about Canonical") 13 February 2013 # Announcing the App Design Guides [app design](https://canonical.com/blog/tag/app-design) [app design guides](https://canonical.com/blog/tag/app-design-guides) [Design](https://canonical.com/blog/tag/design) --- Share the article We’re very excited to have just released the first version of the [App Design Guides](http://design.ubuntu.com/apps "App Design Guides"), the go-to destination to design and build beautiful and usable apps for Ubuntu on phones! There is also a very handy [Ubuntu user interface toolkit preview](http://developer.ubuntu.com/get-started/gomobile/ "Ubuntu user interface toolkit") for developers. We believe technology should be available to everyone. Going mobile is a big leap in that direction for Ubuntu, and great apps are essential for achieving this goal! Following these design guides helps you to create apps that are beautiful, usable, consistent, and maintain Ubuntu’s unique characteristics whilst giving you the flexibility you need. ## 12 core apps To kick things off, we have started a project to build 12 core apps for Ubuntu for phones, and we’ve sketched some key screens for the most important ones – we’ll add them to the [project wiki](https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuPhone/CoreApps/Design "Core apps wiki") shortly! ## Collaboration and next steps Today is just the beginning. The Ubuntu app design guide will be a ‘living’ site. We’ve put a lot of effort into making these design guides as complete as possible for a first version; the design guide will be updated and extended in following versions. We encourage everybody to participate in making it better. If you want to help us improve these guides, join our [mailing list](https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-phone "Ubuntu phone mailing list"). We’d love to hear from you! [Get in touch Interested in running Ubuntu in your organization?](https://ubuntu.com/about/contact-us/form) ## Sign up for our newsletter Get the latest Canonical news and updates in your inbox. Work email: \*I agree to receive information about Canonical's products and services. By submitting this form, I confirm that I have read and agree to [Canonical's Privacy Policy](https://canonical.com/legal/dataprivacy). Sign up ## Share on --- ## Related posts [### Challenges designers face in open source (and how to fix them)](https://canonical.com/blog/challenges-designers-face-in-open-source-and-how-to-fix-them) Open source powers up to 90% of modern software, yet many projects lack usability. Canonical’s Design team surveyed 115 cross-functional professionals to uncover the 4 core... [Kola Ojoodide](https://canonical.com/blog/author/kola-ojoodide) 26 June 2026 [### Why web engineering is great](https://canonical.com/blog/why-web-engineering-is-great) Hi, I’m Johann! I’m an engineering manager in Canonical’s web team. For the larger part of my 15 years of work experience as engineer, I’ve been working in web development.... [Johann Wolf](https://canonical.com/blog/author/johannwolf) 27 April 2026 [### Canonical’s recipe for High Performance Computing](https://canonical.com/blog/canonicals-recipe-for-high-performance-computing) In essence, High Performance Computing (HPC) is quite simple. Speed and scale. In practice, the concept is quite complex and hard to achieve. It is not dissimilar to what... [Igor Ljubuncic](https://canonical.com/blog/author/igorljubuncic) 24 January 2024 [### Web team – hack week 2023](https://canonical.com/blog/web-team-hack-week-2023) Today, around 96% of software projects utilize open source in some way. The web team here at Canonical is passionate about Open source. We lead with an open-by-default approach... [Anthony Dillon](https://canonical.com/blog/author/ya-bo-ng) 25 October 2023