Apparently this stopped working. I can't drag any contact widgets to my home page. After appearing to drag the widget to the page, it takes me to the contact information. When I click on the contact, nothing appears. I took it to a Verizon store where even the tech on the tech phone support had the same problem on his Galaxy S4 with 4.4.2. He said it will be added to the other issues 4.4.2 has.
In order to add a contact widget:
1. Go to contact you want to add shortcut for.
2. Press and hold that contact.
3. Click on "Add shortcut to home"
4. You can now move the shortcut to the screen you want it on.
PITA, I know, but they couldn't find anything else that worked.
Mystery solved: I've been using the Email app and had the Gmail app turned off. Once I turned it back and rebooted, it worked.