Windows Vista User Experience Guidelines
The goals for these official Windows Vista® User Experience Guidelines (or "UX Guide" for short) are to:
- Establish a high quality and consistency baseline for all Windows Vista-based applications.
- Answer your specific user experience questions.
- Make your job easier!
Getting started with Windows Vista
If you are new to Windows Vista:
- Start by checking What's New in Windows Vista. These articles summarize the new core user interface (UI) features that you should use in your Windows Vista UI designs, and how they differ from Windows XP.
- Next, proceed to the Top Rules article, which summarizes the top rules that the Windows Vista Design team suggests you follow to create high-quality, consistent Windows Vista UIs.
- Check out the Top Guidelines Violations article, which summarizes the most common violations that the Windows Vista Design team found during design reviews, and offers guidelines for avoiding these violations.
- Finally, read Designing with Windows Presentation Foundation, which gives you an overview of how to take advantage of this new UI development environment.
What's new
The following new guidelines have been published since our July 2007 update:
UX Guide is downloadable and printable!
By popular demand, we have UX Guide in PDF format.
Feedback
We want your feedback. If you have specific questions, comments, or requests, contact us at winui@microsoft.com.
For Windows Vista technical support, please check the Windows Vista Solution Center and Windows Help and How-to.
Last updated October 10, 2007
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