Guidelines for Windows Store apps.

Design your app's UI to showcase the content. Minimize distraction and help people get immersed in the content by leaving only the most relevant elements on screen. Following these guidelines will help you provide a consistent, elegant, and compelling user experience.

Commands

• App bars:  See Guidelines for app bars.
• Buttons: See Guidelines for buttons.
• Check boxes: See Guidelines for check boxes.
• Radio buttons: See Guidelines for radio buttons.
• Toggle switches: See Guidelines for toggle switches.
• Sliders: See Guidelines for sliders.
• Rating controls: See Guidelines for rating controls.
• Select control: See Guidelines for the Select control.
• Time pickers: See Guidelines for TimePickers.
• Date pickers: See Guidelines for DatePickers.
• Login controls: See Guidelines for login controls.

Navigation

• SemanticZoom: See Guidelines for SemanticZoom controls.
• FlipView: See Guidelines for FlipView controls.
• ListView: See Guidelines for ListView controls and Styling ListView controls.
• Links: See Guidelines for links.

Transient UI

• Flyouts: See Guidelines for Flyouts.
• Message dialogs: See Guidelines for message dialogs.
• Context menus: See Guidelines for context menus.
• Tooltips: See Guidelines for tooltips.
• Progress controls: See Guidelines for progress controls.

Images

• Thumbnails: See Guidelines for thumbnails.

Text and input

• Fonts: See Guidelines for fonts.
• Text boxes: See Guidelines for text input.
• Login controls: See Guidelines for login controls.
• Spell checking:  See Guidelines for spell checking.
• On-screen touch keyboard:  Learn how to show and hide the on-screen touch keyboard when your users don't have access to a hardware keyboard or other peripheral keyboard devices. See Guidelines for touch keyboard.

Roaming to the cloud.

 

Create a continuous experience across devices by roaming data and settings that lets people pick up a task right where they left off and that preserves the UX they care most about, regardless of the device they're using.

• Roaming: Make it easy for users to use your app everywhere, from their kitchen family PC to their work PC to their personal tablet, by maintaining settings and states with roaming. Additional guidance on roaming can be found in Managing app data and Guidelines for roaming app data. To learn how to store and retrieve settings and files from the roaming application data store, see Quickstart: Roaming app data.
• Settings: Consolidate all of your app's settings on one UI surface, and let users configure your app via common mechanism they are already familiar with. See Guidelines for app settings.
• Single sign-on:  Ensure that users can sign in with their Microsoft account and enjoy a consistent experience on any Windows 8 device they use. See Quickstart: Connecting to an online identity provider.

Fundamentals

Every app should always have a solid foundation in order to reach as many people as possible.

• Splash screen:  Use the splash screen to smooth the transition between when people launch your app and when it's ready for use. The splash screen should subtly reinforce your brand with your users, not distract them or advertise to them. See Guidelines for splash screens.
• Suspend and resume app state:  Users will switch your app on and off the screen, and Windows will terminate it in the background when it is unused. You should save and resume the app state when possible to maintain context. See Guidelines for app suspend and resume.
• Auto-launching and "Open With": Launch the default app for a file type or protocol from your app. See Guidelines for file types and protocols.
• Globalization, localization, and app resources: Windows is used worldwide, so you need to design your app so that resources, such as strings and images, are separated from their code, to help make localization easy. See Guidelines for globalizing your app and Guidelines for app resources.
• Accessibility: Make your app available to all users regardless of their abilities, disabilities, or preferences. If you use the built-in UI controls, you get accessibility for free. When you need to create custom controls, see Plan for accessibility.
• App help: Provide help or troubleshooting tips to your users. See Guidelines for app help.
• Store categories: Learn how to create great apps for specific Windows Store categories, like games or entertainment. See Category guidance.

 

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