A distinctive feature of the windows phone 8.1 platform is live tiles (tiles). The meaning of live tiles in displaying application notifications on the main screen. I attach to the main screen only those tiles that are truly “alive”. These are applications that inform and encourage me to launch them. If the application does not have a live tile, it will remain in the list of applications and will be launched much less frequently.

If you have an application on WP or you are just going to do it, pay attention to the following things.

The size

Windows Phone 8.1 has three sizes of live tiles. The size is set by the user. Depending on the size of the live tile, a certain amount of information is displayed.

')

Background

Live tiles have two kinds of backgrounds. Transparent - when a custom image or accent appears in the background of the tile. Unique - the color or image that the application generates.

Notifications

Live tiles make notifications in wp 8.1 more informative than other platforms. Tile is one-sided and two-sided (rotates every 5 seconds).

Additional Tile

Another feature of live tile is the removal of an unlimited number of live tiles from a single application. In the application sports.ru - this allows you to monitor simultaneously the progress of several games. On the tiles displays the score and online broadcast. The user follows the games without being in the application.


Aviasales.ru - here the additional live tile is used as a direct transition to the "best offers" section.

Contexts

In order for a live tile to use its potential, it is necessary to think about how the tile works in contexts.


An example of ill-conceived tile design.

Those. One live tile design works in the context of the "main screen", and in the context of the "list of applications" is not read. This is important, it is worth remembering.

Create a design for each context.

More on topic
Windows Pocket Concept
Design applications for Windows Phone without a knife