For phones running Stock Android, you can use the Settings widget to add shortcuts for various settings. Long-Press on Home Screen: Long-press on any empty space on your home screen.

You can now easily pin apps to the taskbar in the latest Android Canary release. This will make Android's Desktop Mode even more useful.

Choose the shortcut that you want, which you'll be able to preview right up top. The Google widget only supports one shortcut at a time, so you can't add multiple shortcuts right now.