MICROSOFT_PRESS_EBOOK_PROGRAMMING_WINDOWS_8_APPS_WITH_HTML_CSS_AND_JAVASCRIPT_PDF

which provide many specifics on placement, spacing, and grouping. That guidance can be summarized
as follows:
• First, make two groups of commands: one with those commands that appear throughout the
entire app, regardless of context, and another with those that show only on certain pages. The
app bar control is fairly simple to reconfigure at run time for different groups.
• Next, create command sets, such as those that are functionally related, those that toggle view
types, and those that apply to selections. Remember that an app bar command can display a
popup menu, as shown below, to provide a list of options and/or additional controls, including
longer labels, drop-down lists, checkboxes, radiobuttons, and toggle switches. In this way you
can combine closely related commands into a single one that gets more room to play than its
little space on the app bar proper.
• For placement, put persistent commands on the right side of the app bar and the most common
context-specific commands on the left. After that, begin to populate toward the middle. This
recommendation comes from the ergonomic realities of human hands: fingers and
thumbs—even on the largest hands of basketball players!—grow only so long and can reach
only so far on the screen without having to move one’s hand. The most commonly used
commands are best placed nearest to where a person’s thumbs will be when holding a device, as
indicated in the image below (from the Windows 8 Touch Posture topic in the docs). Those spots
are easier to reach (especially by those of us that can’t grip a large ball with one hand!) and thus
make the whole user experience more comfortable.
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