Simple solution to create a zip for Windows users without __MACOSX or any other "period" hidden folders
Without having to use terminal,
you could try Folderwasher, which is an app that creats a zip without the .DS_store file. You can drop the folder onto the application and it compresses it.

Alternatively, you could try Keka, which also has an option to exclude the .DS_store file. Open Keka, click on zip, and check Exclude Mac OS X resource forks and drop what you want to compress on the Keka window.

There are other questions related to this topic:


Compressing folders on a mac, without the .DS_Store on Superuser
Compress without .DS_Store and __MACOSX on AskDifferent