Click here to Skip to main content
65,938 articles
CodeProject is changing. Read more.
Articles
(untagged)

Windows Phone App Design Principles

0.00/5 (No votes)
19 May 2013 1  
Windows Phone app design principles

Introduction

Hope most of you might have heard DOUGLAS MARTIN's quote:

"Questions about whether design is necessary or affordable are quite beside the point: Design is inevitable. The alternative to good design is bad design, not no design at all."

And VICTOR PAPANEK says:

"Design is the conscious effort to impose meaningful order."

So, if designing is that important, then one has to be very stern about it. Going forward, today I am pointing out some design principles for Windows Phone App. So, let's gear up.

  • Clutter free UI - Information should be well organized and user should not get congestion like feeling. Make the best use of typography.
  • Focus should be on content and it should be in a way that it attracts the user's attention from the beginning itself.
  • Try to keep only the most pertinent content on the screen because when it comes to WP design, content matters more than a chrome.
  • Try to provide seamless UX from dedicated device buttons.
  • Tiles should be soulful and alive, in order to achieve better responsiveness.
  • Accentuate more on enhanced touch and gesture information.
  • Try to keep the smart screen updated with only the latest and germane information.
  • Use proper icon/text to introduce your app.
  • Always create UI mockups, before proceeding towards actual implementation.
  • Once mockups are ready, never hesitate to do usability testing.
  • Provide app uniformity by providing similar meaning to similar images, color, symbols, etc.
  • Do spend time in branding your app - it includes logo, color, copyright information, etc.

Hope the above tips were useful. Enjoy !!!

License

This article has no explicit license attached to it but may contain usage terms in the article text or the download files themselves. If in doubt please contact the author via the discussion board below.

A list of licenses authors might use can be found here