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 !!!