Microsoft gui guidelines for windows applications

Using these flags ensures that applications registered for restart are restarted after a system reboot, which minimizes the impact on the user. Skip to main content. This browser is no longer supported. Download Microsoft Edge More info. Contents Exit focus mode. Please rate your experience Yes No. Any additional feedback? Note If the restarted application must run in the same directory it ran in before being shut down, the application must save the directory information and then change to the directory after restarting.

Note The RmRestart function does not restart applications that do not run as the currently-logged on user. In this article. Note These guidelines are not intended to be comprehensive and are subject to the specific scope and functionality of an application.

In this article. Overview of the User Interface Development Process. This section outlines the three phases of user interface design and introduces the tasks that are typically associated with each phase. Designing a User Interface. This section describes in detail some of the tasks associated with designing a UI for a Windows application. Implementing a User Interface. This section describes some of the tasks associated with implementing a user interface for a Windows application. Keep the following in mind when composing questions during this phase:.

Once all user feedback has been collected, analyze and distill it into related issues and requirements. Try to avoid thinking about solutions at this point. Make sure the problems are fully identified, not just the symptoms. It is often helpful to compose a list of one sentence problem statements from the users perspective for each issue or requirement. For example, "Resize edit box width to 15 characters" is not a problem.

But "It is too difficult to type in long search terms" is a valid problem statement. The difference is dramatic. Try not to define the solution and the problem at the same time: often the real problem is lost. In this example, there may be many other ways to solve the problem of search terms, including changing the size of the edit box.

Always keep alternative solutions in mind. If the problem statements are broad enough, there are likely to be many innovative and creative ways to solve them. The act of taking a list of items, and ranking them by priority, defines a release. Without clear priorities, teams may fight and argue over what things should be done and what things should be cut.

The work involved in setting priorities should be easier with the research complete, but it's always a challenge. Setting priorities requires the ability to evaluate on at least three criteria: schedule, team, and business. There may be a predefined schedule set for the project, which limits the size and scale of the work that can be done. A problem that is likely to require rewriting half the code-base should not be attempted during a small release cycle.

The makeup and nature of a team defines what kinds of work can be done. What other commitments does the team have? Is there a designer or usability engineer on the team? What skills with Web or UI design does the team have? Last, and most important, are business considerations.

What are the revenue goals for this project? Who are the competitors?