I design apps
Our challenge? Help you push the boundaries of design.
- Windows 8 is the perfect digital canvas upon which you can create something new and beautiful.
- Live tiles, contracts, and cloud services let you engage your audience in new and different ways—Windows 8 provides the performance for fluid animation and seamless scaling across devices.
- Microsoft’s design language was created with digital artists in mind. Your content will come to life while maintaining a consistent personality and experience for the user. They’ll see your vision, not a hardware manufacturer’s interpretation of it.
- Touch, motion, GPS, voice, and more: Windows 8 allows you to go beyond the visual and integrate all-new user experiences into your app designs.
We speak your language
- Windows 8 brings your vision to life. Whatever language you use, you can craft amazing apps that scale gracefully to any screen size and platform.
- Design apps with the tools you already use: Illustrator, Photoshop, Fireworks, Balsamiq, and more.
- Or go with our own tool, Expression Blend, and start creating today.
- Need guidance? Explore the Windows 8 design principles, or check out the UX guide.
The apps you create will define the future
- This is a very exciting time to be a designer. The things you create now will literally redefine how people interact with technology.
- We like to think of this brave new world as a designer’s sandbox. The tools are all there—it’s up to you to make it unique.
- Use your favorite sci-fi movies UI as a reference, or do something completely unique. Show us the future. We can’t wait to see it.
Take a step:
Resources
Learn about modern design principles which are the basis for the Microsoft UX style guide.
Use visual elements to make your app stand out from the rest. Get inspired by case studies, idea books, and examples of great app design. Plan ahead for different form factors and input interactions.
Editor’s picks
Design your app to be beautiful at all sizes, resolutions, and orientations! We'll cover scaling and layout topics for tablets, laptops, desktops, high-resolution screens and more!
Bill Buxton will share his perspective on how it is vital that devices, applications, and services are designed, from the start, by taking the other members of the ecosystem into account.
Learn about the design differences between iOS apps and Windows Store apps from the perspective of a designer who builds apps for both platforms.
Perspectives
View a step-by-step transformation of an iPad app into a Windows Store app, showing the removal of “chrome,†emphasis on the panorama view, and other elements of Windows 8
Walk through the new Windows 8.1 design principles
The design language surrounding the new user interface introduced by Windows 8 and the Windows Phone operating system is a huge change from the previous style of interface.