I’m working on apps for three platforms at the moment: Apple’s iOS, Google’s Android, and Microsoft’s Metro. Because the three are similar yet different in critical ways, I’ve had to refer to the respective UX guidelines for each several times in the past few weeks.
Wihtout equivocation, and with some surprise, I can report that Microsoft’s Metro Guidelines are by far the best. They are well organized, with helpful but simple illustrations, and content that is lean and mean. Little touches, like this piece on converting an iPad app to Metro, are not only well executed, but also address a critical business need — encouraging adoption of the Metro OS — as well as a developer need.
By contrast, Android and Apple’s iOS guidelines are, frankly, messy, difficult to navigate, wordy, and lacking helpful examples.
In a future post: why I think Android and iOS should adopt (steal?) some of Metro’s excellent UX metaphors.
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Let me know what you think on Twitter: @mmcwatters
