Help us figure out how to translate “charm” and “app” in Windows 8

We are starting the work to figure out what we should call Windows 8 user interface terms such as “charms”,“apps”, “snapped apps” or “thumb keyboard” in international versions.

You can now have a say in what we call all this in Chinese Simplified, Japanese, German and French (more languages will be added later).

Here’s an example of what we are looking for:

In Windows 8, when you swipe from right to left on the right side of the screen with your finger, you’ll notice a series of commands that slides out from the right. This icon bar has 5 of what we’re calling “charms” that provide access to essential Windows features: Search, Share, Start, Devices, and Settings.

Windows 8 Start Screen

What do you think all this should be called?

To take part in deciding, sign on to the Microsoft Terminology Community Forum and give us your opinion. You can vote for existing suggestions, comment on good or bad suggestions or make a new suggestion yourself. 

To get started, select Chinese Simplified, Japanese, German or French and sign in with your Windows Live ID on the start page:

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Once you’ve signed in and registered, simply click the Glossary link. You will see the list of English source terms and our preliminary suggestions. You can vote for the specific translations, comment on them or propose new ones by selecting Suggest a Translation or Vote.

The forums will remain open for feedback until 12 October.

We hope taking part will be a bit of fun and help make the international versions of Windows 8 easy to understand and enjoyable to use for everybody. 

Thanks in advance for participating!