Designing a Properly Designed Search Bar: A Guide to iOS UI Design Decisions

Understanding Search Bars and UI Design Decisions

As a developer, designing user interfaces (UIs) can be a daunting task. One of the most common UI components that can be tricky to design is the search bar. In this article, we’ll explore the best practices for designing a properly designed search bar in iOS, using the UISearchBar control.

What’s Wrong with `UISearchBar`

The UISearchBar control is designed to resemble a navigation bar or toolbar, and it has several features that make it less than ideal for search bars. One of its most notable features is the presence of a rectangle-shaped border around the search field. This border can be distracting and can even draw attention away from the actual search field.

A Better Approach: Using `UITextField`

To create a clean and minimalistic search bar, we need to move away from the UISearchBar control and use the UITextField instead. The UITextField is a basic text input field that can be styled using various properties.

Setting the Border Style

One of the most important steps in designing a search bar is setting the border style. In this case, we want to set the border style to UITextBorderStyleRoundedRect, which creates a rounded rectangle around the search field.

UITextField *searchField = [[UITextField alloc] initWithFrame:CGRectMake(125.0, 25.0, 150, 40)];
[searchField setBorderStyle:UITextBorderStyleRoundedRect];

Styling the Search Field

Once we’ve set the border style, we can start styling the search field to match our desired look and feel. We can change the background color, text color, and font size to suit our needs.

[searchField setBackgroundColor:[UIColor clearColor]];
[searchField setTextColor:[UIColor whiteColor]];
[searchField.setFont:[UIFont systemFontOfSize:17]];

Adding a Cancel Button

If we want to add a cancel button to our search bar, we can use the UITextField delegate method -textFieldShouldReturn:. This method allows us to handle the return key press event and display a cancel button.

- (BOOL)textFieldShouldReturn:(UITextField *)textField {
    // Display cancel button
    NSLog(@"Cancel button tapped");
    return YES;
}

Creating an Oval-Shaped Search Bar

To create an oval-shaped search bar, we need to use some creative geometry. We can use a UIView with a rounded corner radius to create the oval shape.

UIView *ovalView = [[UIView alloc] initWithFrame:CGRectMake(125.0, 25.0, 150, 40)];
[ovalView setLayer.cornerRadius:20];

We can then add our search field inside this view and style it as desired.

Conclusion

Designing a properly designed search bar is an art that requires attention to detail and a deep understanding of UI design principles. By moving away from the UISearchBar control and using the UITextField, we can create a clean and minimalistic search bar that draws attention to the actual search field.

In this article, we’ve explored some common pitfalls when designing search bars and how to use the UITextField to create a custom search bar with an oval shape. We’ve also discussed some advanced techniques for styling the search field and adding a cancel button.

Last modified on 2025-02-27