A typical window blind is made up of several long horizontal or vertical slats of various types of hard material, including wood, plastic, or metal which are held together by cords that run through the blind slats. Window blinds can be maneuvered with either a manual or remote control by rotating them from an open position, with slats spaced out, to a closed position where slats overlap and block out most of the light. There are also several types of window coverings, called shades, that use a single piece of soft material instead of slats.

The term window blinds can also be used to describe window coverings generically—in this context window blinds include almost every type of window covering, i.e. shutters, roller blinds, cellular shades , wood blinds , Roman blinds and standard vertical and horizontal blinds .There are many different kinds of window blinds which use a variety of control systems.