Windows Store App Lab – The Brussels Experience

Windows Store App Labs are physical locations in more than 30 cities around the world where you can access Windows 8 devices, get design help, and meet with Windows experts to make your app great. We have one in Brussels (Zaventem) too and have welcomed several developers over the past few months.

One of them is Tim Van de Velde, student at HOWEST and developer intern at Bet.ty. Tim joined the App Lab on March 22 and spent 2 hours with our app experts Wesley De Bolster and Leslie Cottenje.

Afterwards we asked Tim a few questions …

What's your app all about?
“Bet.ty makes it easy to organize sports bets, both on a small scale (among friends) as on a bigger scale (professional sports teams). We don’t want any more hassle with Excel sheets and calculating scores or using paper and pencil.”

What's your experience overall after attending the lab? Did you find it a valuable investment of your time?  
“It was a privilege and a great opportunity to get the opinion of Wesley and Leslie and I'm very pleased with the feedback I received. I got a new perspective on the project and learned a lot.”

Which issues surfaced during the UX consulting part of the lab? What tips & action items did you go home with?
“Sports is all about pleasure & creativity but my design was a bit too abstract. So the advice they gave me was to be more practical, to loosen up the concept and create a more suitable, vivid look.”

What did you learn from the technical guidance of the Windows 8 expert? How will you implement it in your app?
“I was able to send in my technical questions in advance of the lab. During the session it amazed me to see that he had prepared those questions extensively. He showed me some demo's and shared the solutions with me afterwards. He also provided me with a variety of interesting sources I definitely have to consult. (Mainly about Windows Azure Mobile Services).”

What will be your next steps after attending the lab? When are you planning to publish your app in the Windows Store?
”First and foremost, I'm going to process the feedback. Then I'm going to create a flowchart (the user scenarios). Next month I will certainly attend another App Lab to evaluate the process. Bet.ty will be published in the Windows Store during the last week of May.”

Do you want free consultancy (both technical and UX design) for your app too? Sign up today, it’s free! Next dates are:

- April 17
- May 24
- June 5
- June 19

We hope to welcome you in our lab very soon!