Summary

Summary

We started this chapter by describing application design guidelines with regard to tablets. The Tablet PC team designed these guidelines based on user studies conducted over a number of years. Because Tablet PCs are so different from standard desktops and laptops, it s essential to consider the results of this kind of user research when designing your application.

Pen and digitizer hardware have usability implications that we investigated. The user s physiology also creates some design concerns for applications that expect pen interaction. We suggested several ways to address these usability challenges. We then considered how ink is modeled and interacted with in your application. Finally we explored how your application works with the Tablet PC Platform to create a sense of realism in the digital ink that s generated.

We have now formed the mental foundation behind designing Tablet PC applications. Starting with the next chapter, we dive right into the specifics of the Tablet PC Platform SDK, which will give you the necessary tools to write your own well-designed Tablet PC applications.