Designing for Windows 8 is now available!

Today is an exciting day for me.  My book, Designing for Windows 8, officially released today and is now available.  Those of you that pre-ordered it early might already have it or are receiving it today!  

When I got contacted back at the beginning of May, I wasn't sure if writing this book was something that I wanted to commit to or not.  I received a lot of advice from colleagues.  Some were in favor of the idea and some said I should run away from it as fast as possible.  Thankfully, I decided to do this because it has been a very rewarding process. Now, I just have to wait for the UPS guy to bring me my copies.

So, you might be wondering what's actually in the book and why you might want to pick up a copy.

What's in the book?

The book uses the Running Total reference application that was built using Infragistics Win UI controls as an example throughout the book.  Full access to the source code for this application is provided with the book.

Chapter 1 introduces you to the inspirations behind the Microsoft Design Style.  This is something I covered in my design series earlier this year.

Chapter 2 goes into detail about the Microsoft Design Style principles.  I discussed these at some length in the design series starting in part 3.  The book goes into greater detail on each.

Chapter 3 is all about design strategies.  This chapter will help you design the right app and produce the right design for it.  Part of this chapter deals with prototyping, which is something I have started a series for using Indigo Studio.

Chapter 4 discusses the "basic building blocks" of Windows 8 design.  ListView/GridView, App Bar, Navigation Bar, and Semantic Zoom are all covered in this chapter and design strategies for each are introduced.

Chapter 5 deals with the Windows 8 platform and some specifics you will need to consider in your app design.  These include designing for touch and designing for the form factor.

Chapter 6 is a brief chapter with practical information about bringing existing apps (both desktop and other tablet platforms) to the Windows Store.

Contact

If you have any questions or comments, please comment below or find me on Twitter @brentschooley.  You can also email me at bschooley@infragistics.com.