On Wednesday, David Washington, a senior program manager on Microsoft's User Experience team, detailed on the blog how Windows 8 will accommodate not only devices of various screen sizes and resolutions, but also screen densities.

Here are the three ways to measure a screen, and how Microsoft is addressing them in Windows 8.

Washington talked the least about screen size--the diagonal, corner-to-coner measurement of the display area of the screen. The screen sizes available in devices varies immensely, from 1 inch in small handheld devices to well over 600 inches in a stadium display. Microsoft is focusing on screens for three primary uses: "Slates" that tend to be 10.1 to 17 inches, "Workhorse PCs" typically from 12 to 15.6 inches, and "Family Hubs" that are either large monitors or, more commonly, high definition televisions 23 inches and larger. Windows 8, especially on the Metro interface, is designed to look and function well in all three scenarios.