Mixing navigation systems: Can the navigation and UI jeopardize the app submission if I don't follow the guidelines?

Question

I'm trying to mix the hierarchical and flat navigation systems in my design and would like to know if by doing that I could be compromising the app submission approval. My question is: My UI should strictly follow a hierarchical or flat system or can I mix both and get a custom and usable UI for my app?

Thanks,

Answer 1

Hi all, I'm trying to design a metro UI and I see that most of the apps use the navigation strategies like you show in the guidelines: totally hierarchical or totally flat system. 

What I want to do is a mix of them: having a hub page widgets on it (summary of the sections). Within this hub page, if you click on one of the widgets, you go the part of the section page in the second level. Let me show you a mockup:

User can flick to go to the next or previous section or could go back to the hub page. My questions are: Can I do this? Can the UI design jeopardize the submission and approval for being in the Metro Store? Can we play mixing the navigation systems?

Thanks for your help.

Answer 2

These are guidelines for navigation patterns which work well with many (but not all) apps. If they aren't appropriate for your app then you can diverge or mix them as needed. The goal is to have a consistently good user experience, not a consistent-at-the-expense-of-good experience.

--Rob