Plan and design

When planning your Windows Store app, think less about what features you want to include and more about what your app should be good at. Planning ahead for different form factors, accessibility, monetization, and selling in the global market can reduce your development time and make it easier to create a high quality app and get it certified.

Taking advantage of user experience guidelines and design patterns can make it easier to design an app that’s attractive and easy to use.

• User experience guidelines explain how to design apps that provide a consistent, elegant, and compelling experience, and offer advice for working with specific design features (such as layout) and individual controls (such as the ListView).
• Design patterns are blueprints that you can follow for designing common UI features, such as navigation, commanding, touch interaction, advertising, and branding.

Plan and design your app:

• Planning Windows Store apps tells you how to plan for a great app by considering form factors, branding, monetization, the global market, quality and certification, and accessibility.
• Windows 8 app certification requirements describe the criteria for publishing your app to the Windows Store. Reading through these requirements can be a great help as you plan your app.
• Design guidance for Windows Store apps explains how to organize content, where to place common commands, what touch gestures to use, how to infuse your brand into your app, and how to ensure a great overall user experience.

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