Make a Windows Store app!

I saw Ryan Lowdermilk speak on designing Windows Store Apps for Windows 8 over a lunch break on the second day of the Dallas Day of Dot Net convention this year. He offered eight traits for a Windows 8 application:

1. Microsoft-style Design
2. Fast and Fluid
3. Snap and Scale Beautifully
4. Use the Right Contracts
5. Invest in a Great Tile
6. Feel Connected and Alive
7. Roam to the Cloud
8. Embrace Microsoft Design Patterns

 
 

The first bullet point speaks to the creative theme of Windows 8 which used to be called Metro until Metro AG threatened a lawsuit. Ryan spoke to how the brain works by breaking things up into chunks and chunks things into up to four subsets. He also spoke to the rule of thirds. If one has an image and it were broken into nine boxes like so:

 
 

...one should ideally line up the most interesting content along one of the midgrid lines instead of just trying to center the subject. Don't take away discoverability. It is alright to let someone wonder what happens if they click on something. In contrast, it is a mistake to make every clickable hotspot look like a button. Typically, navigation goes at the top bar and commands go at the bottom bar. These bars appear if one moves a mouse pointer there and are otherwise not to be seen, maximizing screen real-estate. Hide or grey-out submit buttons until all required form fields are completed. You can either make an app that has a flat pattern (think the forward and next pagination of Internet Explorer) or one where you may dive down to a second or third tier. There is a feature called Symantic Zoom which is available when a box with a hyphen in it appears at the lower right. The icon will allow for opening new content for the content at hand. One semantically zooms into deeper content. What should be given and how this will grow into a standardized expectation of experience is yet to be defined. Touch is a first class feature in Windows 8.