22 ms·

Microsoft job posting suggests a major user interface update expected in 2021

89 points by alexrustic 6y ago

gruez 6y ago
ugh. I seriously hope this is after the next LTSC so I don't have to deal with it for another decade.
- rightbyte 6y ago
  Microsoft's OSes are not about the user anymore. It is just freeware to sell ads or subscriptions. The upside I see with this PM-driven UI churn is that Linux desktop might be worthwhile for more users.
infinityplus1 6y ago
I hope they improve the start menu search and prevent cases when right clicking a file can freeze the PC frequently.
- jaspax 6y ago
  Right-click freeze has literally never happened to me. Check that you don't have misbehaving shell extensions: the most common culprit is a program that adds its own item to the right-click menu but doesn't play well with others and winds up hanging when the shell asks it what it wants to do.
  - anonunivgrad 6y ago
    I second the shell extension thing. This is the tool to use: https://www.nirsoft.net/utils/shexview.html https://www.nirsoft.net/utils/shexview.html
  - alkonaut 6y ago
    This seems like issues that just shouldn't be allowed to happen. An unresponsive extension, a network drive not answering etc should never need to block the UI - yet it always did in Windows. They really really need to make all such things async and simply show the context menus without the extensions, or show a spinner when explorer wants to show a slow network location. That the message pump of the explorer windows stop because a server in another country is down must be a design that is extremely hard to change in windows explorer - because they have surely seen this problem.
    - gruez 6y ago
      >They really really need to make all such things async and simply show the context menus without the extensions but then you have another problem: if the system load is high (eg. hard drive is busy), then context menu items would randomly disappear. That's arguably worse than before, because it happens randomly. >or show a spinner you mean this? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_wait_cursor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_wait_cursor
      - wtetzner 6y ago
        I think they meant show a spinner in place of the blocking entry.
- formercoder 6y ago
  I just windows-q and type the name of the application I want and it always works. Don’t even know what the start menu looks like.
goda90 6y ago
>This UI refresh will reportedly include an overhaul to the Start Menu, Action Center and some in-box/bundled Microsoft apps, and they will be an optional change. How often has an optional change become the only option after awhile?
- emsy 6y ago
  Windows just adds this stuff and keeps the old cruft (in some cases it’s necessary because the Win 10 network settings are so awfully lacking you need the legacy option). We now have settings dating back to Win 95 with no uniform guideline concept or lack of vision.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
rhexs 6y ago
I hope they finally fully implement/hide most of the old era Windows UI elements. Biggest one I still use to this day is the control panel.
- caspper69 6y ago
  It is my understanding that the biggest issue with Control Panel is 3rd party control panel widgets that would be incompatible with any wholesale changes. That may of course just be the official party line too...
- capableweb 6y ago
  Unlikely to happen soon and also happen all at once. Device manager, Log viewer and a bunch of other system tools basically look the same as they've done since I think the 90s. Nothing wrong with that, the stuff works and changing it will just incur extra costs for everyone involved.
- wvenable 6y ago
  Why? The old control panel is infinitely more useful in most cases than the new one. Just look at Add/Remove programs -- the new one is ridiculous compared to the classic one. I'm not against the new Settings dialog but I don't see why anything that works needs to be removed.
capableweb 6y ago
Talk about making a news story out of nothing! Here's the job ad directly from Microsoft (https://careers.microsoft.com/us/en/job/922184/Senior-Software-Engineer https://careers.microsoft.com/us/en/job/922184/Senior-Softwa...): > The Windows Core User Experiences team builds interfaces for Windows and Surface Hub customers around the world, and we’re looking for a collaborative, inclusive and customer obsessed engineer to help us build the future of Windows Experiences! > On this team, you’ll orchestrate and deliver experiences that ensure Windows is a great user experience for our customers. > You will have the opportunity to build delightful, polished, experiences for Windows as well as for our Surface Hub product line. You will play a key role in open-ended explorations, prototyping and identifying business opportunities for Windows experiences. We're looking for collaborative engineers to bring their passion, drive and technical acumen to help us accomplish these goals. > We have a wide spectrum of fantastic opportunities to further advance your career and expand your skillset – from building UI using the latest cutting-edge XAML technologies, designing new APIs in conjunction with the our platform team partners, to interfacing with hardware teams to build the essential platform and infrastructure in our OS - as well as working directly with our customers to understand their needs and deliver magical software that exceeds their expectations! How do they get from that to "This UI refresh will reportedly include an overhaul to the Start Menu, Action Center and some in-box/bundled Microsoft apps" is my question? Sounds like a normal job ad for any UI or design related engineer.
- interestica 6y ago
  > reportedly They reported it. It's now reportedly. And all other sites can also mention "reportedly" as well now too.
- ChrisLomont 6y ago
  > Talk about making a news story out of nothing! .... The article states your post is the job posting after it was edited. The original had the text: "On this team, you'll work with our key platform, Surface, and OEM partners to orchestrate and deliver a sweeping visual rejuvenation of Windows experiences to signal to our customers that Windows is BACK and ensure that Windows is considered the best user OS experience for customers"
bluedays 6y ago
Maybe we'll get lucky and create an API that allows you to use Linux desktop environments.
vehemenz 6y ago
While there are things to improve—better UI scaling, type rendering, dark mode, touch compatibility—I personally would like to see a return to simplicity. The Windows UI has been inconsistent and weird since Windows 2000 (or XP if you turned off the Sesame Street theme).
- ilimilku 6y ago
  Sesame Street! Yes! My friends and I called it "Fisher Price".
  - rdiddly 6y ago
    We would also have accepted: Duplo
- spaetzleesser 6y ago
  “The Windows UI has been inconsistent and weird since Windows 2000” Very true. Windows 95 and then 2000 showed some real efforts to get good and consistent usability. They threw that all away with Windows 8 and Metro.
wdobbels 6y ago
I'm hoping they finally bring native tabs to their file explorer. It's annoying to have to open multiple windows if you want to browse multiple directories. In addition, I'm hoping for a "column view" like mac has.
- pionar 6y ago
  It's had native tabs for a while now?
  - withinrafael 6y ago
    File Explorer does not have tabs, like a browser has. You might be thinking of the Ribbon UI?
cies 6y ago
Not again. Now, anno 2021, it's so messy with all different UI-kits they've standardized in the past 20+ years that a Linux desktop looks clean in comparison.
- dustinmoris 6y ago
  Agreed. Windows is the result of an ugly monkey eating a bat, then fucking a sick poodle and the bastard child being raised by a fish.
- pjmlp 6y ago
  If the community wouldn't continuously bork desktop efforts searching for the ultimate twm like experience, juggling xterms.
grishka 6y ago
UI redesigns of desktop operating systems are usually opposite of exciting these days. You could be damn sure they'll further optimize it for touchscreens no one uses. Here's an opinion: desktop UIs are mature. They serve their purpose outstandingly well. The best thing you could do is revert most of the last 10 years of "innovation" and then leave them alone forever. Stop reinventing stuff that has worked well for decades.
- lemonspat 6y ago
  I have often wondered when a UI will be 'settled' and won't need to be updated anymore. But then what will the UI designers do? Idle fingers make new designs?
  - silon42 6y ago
    IBM CUA 87/92 is at least 90% done if not more.
  - Arainach 6y ago
    Never, because if you change the insides no one notices: https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20040525-00/?p=39193 https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20040525-00/?p=39...
- jjoonathan 6y ago
  Desktop UIs are hardly mature, but for the last 15 years UI innovation has been about putting lipstick on a pig rather than deep-diving subsystems and figuring out how to graphically represent and control them. Designers aren't doing subsystem deep-dives, they're just implementing subsets of existing wholly inadequate GUIs using new widgets. Conversely, systems people who understand the un-GUIed subsystems aren't doing design work to better expose them, or expose them at all. It's an unproductive and frustrating stalemate.
  - grishka 6y ago
    Desktop UIs are mature, and were such by the end of '00s, in the sense that they've made the best use of the keyboard and mouse. Sure, it's okay to add subtle new things, like window snapping on Windows (the thing where you drag it to the edge of the screen) or inertial scrolling on macOS. It's absolutely not okay to take a perfectly functional and polished UI and "refresh" it with disproportional controls and huge fonts because people now carry phones in their pockets. The only good reason for a complete UI redesign is change in the way it's interacted with, for example because some novel kind of input device came about. But then again, the mere existence of touchscreens shouldn't be detrimental to the UX of those who use keyboard and mouse.
uncledave 6y ago
They haven’t finished the last one yet.
stevehawk 6y ago
I'm really hoping they force more touch like features on mouse and keyboard users. I really appreciate having to swipe things with my mouse. /s
- MikusR 6y ago
  Where in Windows do you have to do that?
  - vxNsr 6y ago
    lockscreen
    - stan_rogers 6y ago
      You can press the "any" key.
x87678r 6y ago
There have been rumors about the 'Sun Valley' gui refresh for months. This is from October https://www.windowscentral.com/windows-10-sun-valley-ui-october-2021-update https://www.windowscentral.com/windows-10-sun-valley-ui-octo.... Its not exactly a surprised either, Windows 10 was released in 2016(?).
unnouinceput 6y ago
I hope they will do a Windows 7 "back", but knowing them they'll probably the horrible Windows 8 instead
- pjmlp 6y ago
  They acknowledged that with Project Reunion, where Win32 and UWP are supposed to be merged, but with what is going on, and probably other internal issues, it has been very slow at bringing out that vision.
- samfisher83 6y ago
  windows 7 was good. They could have just stopped with it. Make some security upgrades and call it a day.
  - pjmlp 6y ago
    Sinofsky....
alkonaut 6y ago
Hope they aim for consistency in the refresh. I don't mind constant refreshes or redesigns. I don't care that I'm slightly less efficient in the modern settings pages than in the old control panel. I'm happy to lose a bit of efficiency to have a nice design. Just like I want web pages to have a nice design even at a (reasonable) cost of readability or usability. But what does bug me is when the refreshes are half baked. Either refresh everything visible and hide the old one entirely behind some obscure command if it must remain, or don't refresh at all.
- leoedin 6y ago
  I hate it so much when I want to do some obscure thing on Windows, but when I go to the place you used to be able to do it, it's gone! Replaced with a "modern" control panel which doesn't support that obscure thing. Instead, I have to find my way to the old window via a different route. Eventually the original control panel pops up and I can change that setting. I don't have a problem with changing things if it replaces all the functionality.
- syshum 6y ago
  Modern Settings is TERRIBLE and missing a crap ton of options that were better in Control Panel... It is trying to do to must "automatically" for you instead of just letting you control the system.
  - alkonaut 6y ago
    Yep. So it's really not finished. In order to be finished, it obviously has to do everything. Since the old UX must exist forever for compat, I could accept some part of the most extreme settings to be hidden there (After all - in the end we are still resorting to registry edits for anything that isn't in the control panel!) - but the network card settings, audio device settings that are used by almost every user, is still in the old world. It works, but navigation is confusing, the experience switching between different paradigms is jarring, you can't search for things from the top level and find it in the control panel and so on. They have eft it at 60% finished instead of the 95% or 99% that would make it actually usable.
- 6y ago
51Cards 6y ago
"This UI refresh will reportedly include an overhaul to the Start Menu, Action Center and some in-box/bundled Microsoft apps, and they will be an optional change. " Call me cynical but I doubt they will be "optional" for long. At launch perhaps, but Microsoft has tended to transition the "optional" into the "default" then into the "only" version in the past.
ExcavateGrandMa 6y ago
Ho dear, again? :D
WhoCaresLies 6y ago
if it was only just the UI the internals of the OS are also problematic on top of that UWP/XAML story is not really that good when you compare to SwiftUI on macOS the whole macOS experience is what they should AIM for but that means giving up on all the legacy bits that keep stacking up since forever.. Windows need a massive spring cleanup, i'd say a reboot, but i'm not sure the people are microsoft are this courageous, i have the feeling they are just lazy
eyelidlessness 6y ago
Maybe I’m just coming from a place of ignorance (I haven’t used Windows for years), but why? The Win10 UI looks to me probably the most attractive and usable it’s ever been. Enough so that I’d probably feel comfortable switching to it if I decided the Mac isn’t for me anymore. Not that I don’t trust MS’s recent design direction, but I have to wonder if such a major overhaul is warranted.
- spoonjim 6y ago
  Windows 10 has a lot of problems. There are two different control panels!
  - runjake 6y ago
    Don't bring that up, they may get rid of the older, more usable one!
    - WastingBody 6y ago
      Nah, they'll just add a third option.
      - ogre_codes 6y ago
        Thanks for making me laugh. This is by far the most Microsoft comment ever.
        tartoran 6y ago
        And whatever they miss in the third option they’ll shove it in a fourth one then a subsequent version they’ll do some infuriatinng consolidation between the two that will drive users mad even more, the tutorials will be pointing users to all sort of methods that no longer work. That’s the way Windows’s been. Every other 2 iterations they eventually got it working but the disaster inbetween was the most frustrating experience. No wonder people held onto older version of windows until they no were no longer supported. Upgrading wasn’t worth the wased time most of the time
bengale 6y ago
I eagerly await a third control panel.
xyst 6y ago
who cares about the ui? why can't they just fix their shitty os? even wsl2 is known to break git repositories for unknown reasons. my only use for windows is for gaming use cases, otherwise I stick with linux
yboris 6y ago
Worth mentioning Windows 10X -- seems like it's coming eventually. https://blogs.windows.com/windowsexperience/2019/10/02/introducing-windows-10x-enabling-dual-screen-pcs-in-2020/ https://blogs.windows.com/windowsexperience/2019/10/02/intro...
jolux 6y ago
If they could just consolidate the half-dozen control panels with both overlapping and disjoint functionality I would be happy.
yboris 6y ago
side comment: An animated pie chart of most popular desktop & laptop operating systems from 2003 to 2020. https://twitter.com/randal_olson/status/1344021969096720384 https://twitter.com/randal_olson/status/1344021969096720384
trident5000 6y ago
I wonder how much more they will prod me to move all my files to their servers/cloud. And then how many more times per week they will force me to shut down my computer and update it. Its almost like they are moving to PC as a service. I anticipate ill be moving to Linux pretty soon.
- boxmonster 6y ago
  I'm in the Windows 10 beta program. I don't even think much about the 2 times a month I'm asked to restart my machine.
  - trident5000 6y ago
    I run programs that cannot afford for windows to tell me I need to shut my computer down especially within certain hours of the day. I'm usually ok but they should set the automatic updates to default but give users some sort of option. AaronFriel you can only pause for a few weeks and you need to keep doing that in perpetuity. That said, its not so much impossible to work around, its just annoying and feels like an encroachment. If I want to run my PC as a server with near 100% uptime then just let me do it. moksly, an enterprise license is for 500+ employees and will have a cost to match that.
    - AaronFriel 6y ago
      You can pause updates.
      - Shared404 6y ago
        That's not enough. I had a client have a commercial CNC project screwed up because Windows decided it was done pausing, or didn't give them the obvious option. I wasn't onsite to pause it myself.
        jgalt212 6y ago
        We were similarly almost bit in the @ass a few times during the lockdowns when no one was around to stop the Windows boxes from doing what they wanted, or were centrally commanded, to do. I don't recall if we found a workaround, or were able to get someone in the office to do the reboots.
refracture 6y ago
You know it's sad when I feel no anxiety over a major redesign. It's so awful right now that the idea of them throwing it all in the trash and starting over is very appealing.
- incrudible 6y ago
  I still have that anxiety. I think it's fine now and I don't want Microsoft to go crazy on UI again.
PascLeRasc 6y ago
If I could have two things out of the new UI: Right now you can't blindly mouse up and over in Microsoft Edge to get to the leftmost tab since that space is reserved for the browser window and clicking it will un-maximize the window or minimize it when you click again expecting to arrive at your email. I'd also like to be able to open Internet Explorer when I open the start menu, type in "internet explorer" and click the listing with the IE logo marked "Internet Explorer" Around half the time this opens Microsoft Edge. This is probably asking for too much though.
partiallypro 6y ago
I look forward to this, but I have been hearing about a major UI overhaul to make the Windows UI "beautiful" since Windows 10 launched...and it has basically never happened. It is incredible how Apple can launch a major UI overhaul (which I think looks great) while Microsoft has more or less the same look as Windows did when 10 first launched (granted it has gotten some good features since then.) Edit: this thread is full of Linux stans (I use Linux too!) calling Windows a POS... I don't see how that is helpful or relevant to anything. Windows is actually...very good. It has some problems, but uh, using Linux and even MacOS, every OS has its share of problems/difficulties.
- tylerjwilk00 6y ago
  How is comparing the UI/UX of one OS to another OS _NOT_ relevant to an article about one OS UI/UX revamp?
  - partiallypro 6y ago
    I'm not sure what you mean? I just compared the UI/UX to MacOS...that is relevant. Others in the thread simply saying "Windows is a POS" etc etc is not relevant.
sitzkrieg 6y ago
user interfaces have only gotten worse since windows 2000
everydayDonut 6y ago
It would be great if they let you customize the start menu tiles. All my videogames looked like crap, unless they were from xbox gamepass. It takes a lot of work to use third party tile apps, and you can't even pin a UWP app through it
rootsudo 6y ago
They've already rebranded alot of roles, no longer is there a "TAM" role. Product manager/Program manager next it seems...
screye 6y ago
I am hoping for UX refresh instead of a UI refresh. UI is on the surface, UX is everything else. I am genuinely hoping for more pen & touch-screen focused accomodations too. The keyboard/mouse experience for windows is already decent enough, but these new input devices need help. This is especially true with the ipad pro becoming more of a general purpose computing device. Lastly, I hope windows puts more care into revamping curation of various app/program stores/managers. Chocolatey is great, but is a pain to use and isn't as widely supported. The windows store has a few gems in what is a sea f spam apps. Lastly Lastly, better native tiling, search and workspace management please. (I know powertoys exists, but why not integrate it directly)
rodarmor 6y ago
I look forward to a redesign of some, but not all, of the system preferences, so that there are three distinct styles of preference pane with different partially disjoint sets of options, that you have to go hunting through to find the setting you want.
- arduinomancer 6y ago
  Ehh I bet that will happen again. I can just picture some PM somewhere: "Well most of our users aren't using those settings, why bother putting in dev time to update them. Lets just push out the main UI update as an MVP then come back later* and update the more obscure settings." *Narrator: "they didn't"
  - mwcampbell 6y ago
    > *Narrator: "they didn't" I know you weren't referring to Narrator the screen reader here, but I can't resist. While I was on the Windows accessibility team, which owns Narrator, we actually did phase out the old Narrator settings UI in favor of the new, UWP-based one.
- randylahey 6y ago
  Only three? I'm pretty sure I can already count at least 3 UI fads that have come and gone in my Windows 10 install. Somehow it's gotten worse each time... I'm trying not to sound like a grumpy old man but it feels like each revision is more geared towards mobile device users and the product sees a corresponding loss of flexibility and configurability.
- phillco 6y ago
  It's like looking at the rings of a redwood tree. You can navigate all the way down to a Windows 3.1 form in some places.
  - sp332 6y ago
    The last place I knew of was in the fonts management, but they removed that one. Are there some left?
jpalomaki 6y ago
Hopefully they will explore tiling window manager concepts further. I think one area for productivity improvement is to make it easier to split screen between apps. Of course it’s doable already, but could be better and easier.
wayneftw 6y ago
I don't understand why everybody is concerned about the settings or the control panel interfaces. Is that really what you're dealing with all day? I spend as little time as possible messing with that stuff. Does it run your apps? Is the window management bearable? Are things running fast and responsive? Those are my concerns.
e232e 6y ago
I want the classic theme back.
Krasnol 6y ago
It'll be BACK for me when I won't have to use Open Shell but somehow I feel it'll become even more necessary...
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
spacemanmatt 6y ago
I have been using Windows since 2.x (It actually ran on my IBM PS/2 model 25) and I have this to say to Microsoft about their GUIs: You are boring and have developed no imagination in 30 years.

89 points by alexrustic 6y ago

gruez 6y ago

ugh. I seriously hope this is after the next LTSC so I don't have to deal with it for another decade.

rightbyte 6y ago
Microsoft's OSes are not about the user anymore. It is just freeware to sell ads or subscriptions. The upside I see with this PM-driven UI churn is that Linux desktop might be worthwhile for more users.

infinityplus1 6y ago

I hope they improve the start menu search and prevent cases when right clicking a file can freeze the PC frequently.

jaspax 6y ago
Right-click freeze has literally never happened to me. Check that you don't have misbehaving shell extensions: the most common culprit is a program that adds its own item to the right-click menu but doesn't play well with others and winds up hanging when the shell asks it what it wants to do.
- anonunivgrad 6y ago
  I second the shell extension thing. This is the tool to use: https://www.nirsoft.net/utils/shexview.html https://www.nirsoft.net/utils/shexview.html
- alkonaut 6y ago
  This seems like issues that just shouldn't be allowed to happen. An unresponsive extension, a network drive not answering etc should never need to block the UI - yet it always did in Windows. They really really need to make all such things async and simply show the context menus without the extensions, or show a spinner when explorer wants to show a slow network location. That the message pump of the explorer windows stop because a server in another country is down must be a design that is extremely hard to change in windows explorer - because they have surely seen this problem.
  - gruez 6y ago
    >They really really need to make all such things async and simply show the context menus without the extensions but then you have another problem: if the system load is high (eg. hard drive is busy), then context menu items would randomly disappear. That's arguably worse than before, because it happens randomly. >or show a spinner you mean this? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_wait_cursor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_wait_cursor
    - wtetzner 6y ago
      I think they meant show a spinner in place of the blocking entry.
formercoder 6y ago
I just windows-q and type the name of the application I want and it always works. Don’t even know what the start menu looks like.

goda90 6y ago

>This UI refresh will reportedly include an overhaul to the Start Menu, Action Center and some in-box/bundled Microsoft apps, and they will be an optional change. How often has an optional change become the only option after awhile?

emsy 6y ago
Windows just adds this stuff and keeps the old cruft (in some cases it’s necessary because the Win 10 network settings are so awfully lacking you need the legacy option). We now have settings dating back to Win 95 with no uniform guideline concept or lack of vision.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

rhexs 6y ago

I hope they finally fully implement/hide most of the old era Windows UI elements. Biggest one I still use to this day is the control panel.

caspper69 6y ago
It is my understanding that the biggest issue with Control Panel is 3rd party control panel widgets that would be incompatible with any wholesale changes. That may of course just be the official party line too...
capableweb 6y ago
Unlikely to happen soon and also happen all at once. Device manager, Log viewer and a bunch of other system tools basically look the same as they've done since I think the 90s. Nothing wrong with that, the stuff works and changing it will just incur extra costs for everyone involved.
wvenable 6y ago
Why? The old control panel is infinitely more useful in most cases than the new one. Just look at Add/Remove programs -- the new one is ridiculous compared to the classic one. I'm not against the new Settings dialog but I don't see why anything that works needs to be removed.

capableweb 6y ago

Talk about making a news story out of nothing! Here's the job ad directly from Microsoft (https://careers.microsoft.com/us/en/job/922184/Senior-Software-Engineer https://careers.microsoft.com/us/en/job/922184/Senior-Softwa...): > The Windows Core User Experiences team builds interfaces for Windows and Surface Hub customers around the world, and we’re looking for a collaborative, inclusive and customer obsessed engineer to help us build the future of Windows Experiences! > On this team, you’ll orchestrate and deliver experiences that ensure Windows is a great user experience for our customers. > You will have the opportunity to build delightful, polished, experiences for Windows as well as for our Surface Hub product line. You will play a key role in open-ended explorations, prototyping and identifying business opportunities for Windows experiences. We're looking for collaborative engineers to bring their passion, drive and technical acumen to help us accomplish these goals. > We have a wide spectrum of fantastic opportunities to further advance your career and expand your skillset – from building UI using the latest cutting-edge XAML technologies, designing new APIs in conjunction with the our platform team partners, to interfacing with hardware teams to build the essential platform and infrastructure in our OS - as well as working directly with our customers to understand their needs and deliver magical software that exceeds their expectations! How do they get from that to "This UI refresh will reportedly include an overhaul to the Start Menu, Action Center and some in-box/bundled Microsoft apps" is my question? Sounds like a normal job ad for any UI or design related engineer.

interestica 6y ago
> reportedly They reported it. It's now reportedly. And all other sites can also mention "reportedly" as well now too.
ChrisLomont 6y ago
> Talk about making a news story out of nothing! .... The article states your post is the job posting after it was edited. The original had the text: "On this team, you'll work with our key platform, Surface, and OEM partners to orchestrate and deliver a sweeping visual rejuvenation of Windows experiences to signal to our customers that Windows is BACK and ensure that Windows is considered the best user OS experience for customers"

bluedays 6y ago

Maybe we'll get lucky and create an API that allows you to use Linux desktop environments.

vehemenz 6y ago

While there are things to improve—better UI scaling, type rendering, dark mode, touch compatibility—I personally would like to see a return to simplicity. The Windows UI has been inconsistent and weird since Windows 2000 (or XP if you turned off the Sesame Street theme).

ilimilku 6y ago
Sesame Street! Yes! My friends and I called it "Fisher Price".
- rdiddly 6y ago
  We would also have accepted: Duplo
spaetzleesser 6y ago
“The Windows UI has been inconsistent and weird since Windows 2000” Very true. Windows 95 and then 2000 showed some real efforts to get good and consistent usability. They threw that all away with Windows 8 and Metro.

wdobbels 6y ago

I'm hoping they finally bring native tabs to their file explorer. It's annoying to have to open multiple windows if you want to browse multiple directories. In addition, I'm hoping for a "column view" like mac has.

pionar 6y ago
It's had native tabs for a while now?
- withinrafael 6y ago
  File Explorer does not have tabs, like a browser has. You might be thinking of the Ribbon UI?

cies 6y ago

Not again. Now, anno 2021, it's so messy with all different UI-kits they've standardized in the past 20+ years that a Linux desktop looks clean in comparison.

dustinmoris 6y ago
Agreed. Windows is the result of an ugly monkey eating a bat, then fucking a sick poodle and the bastard child being raised by a fish.
pjmlp 6y ago
If the community wouldn't continuously bork desktop efforts searching for the ultimate twm like experience, juggling xterms.

grishka 6y ago

UI redesigns of desktop operating systems are usually opposite of exciting these days. You could be damn sure they'll further optimize it for touchscreens no one uses. Here's an opinion: desktop UIs are mature. They serve their purpose outstandingly well. The best thing you could do is revert most of the last 10 years of "innovation" and then leave them alone forever. Stop reinventing stuff that has worked well for decades.

lemonspat 6y ago
I have often wondered when a UI will be 'settled' and won't need to be updated anymore. But then what will the UI designers do? Idle fingers make new designs?
- silon42 6y ago
  IBM CUA 87/92 is at least 90% done if not more.
- Arainach 6y ago
  Never, because if you change the insides no one notices: https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20040525-00/?p=39193 https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20040525-00/?p=39...
jjoonathan 6y ago
Desktop UIs are hardly mature, but for the last 15 years UI innovation has been about putting lipstick on a pig rather than deep-diving subsystems and figuring out how to graphically represent and control them. Designers aren't doing subsystem deep-dives, they're just implementing subsets of existing wholly inadequate GUIs using new widgets. Conversely, systems people who understand the un-GUIed subsystems aren't doing design work to better expose them, or expose them at all. It's an unproductive and frustrating stalemate.
- grishka 6y ago
  Desktop UIs are mature, and were such by the end of '00s, in the sense that they've made the best use of the keyboard and mouse. Sure, it's okay to add subtle new things, like window snapping on Windows (the thing where you drag it to the edge of the screen) or inertial scrolling on macOS. It's absolutely not okay to take a perfectly functional and polished UI and "refresh" it with disproportional controls and huge fonts because people now carry phones in their pockets. The only good reason for a complete UI redesign is change in the way it's interacted with, for example because some novel kind of input device came about. But then again, the mere existence of touchscreens shouldn't be detrimental to the UX of those who use keyboard and mouse.

uncledave 6y ago

They haven’t finished the last one yet.

stevehawk 6y ago

I'm really hoping they force more touch like features on mouse and keyboard users. I really appreciate having to swipe things with my mouse. /s

MikusR 6y ago
Where in Windows do you have to do that?
- vxNsr 6y ago
  lockscreen
  - stan_rogers 6y ago
    You can press the "any" key.

x87678r 6y ago

There have been rumors about the 'Sun Valley' gui refresh for months. This is from October https://www.windowscentral.com/windows-10-sun-valley-ui-october-2021-update https://www.windowscentral.com/windows-10-sun-valley-ui-octo.... Its not exactly a surprised either, Windows 10 was released in 2016(?).

unnouinceput 6y ago

I hope they will do a Windows 7 "back", but knowing them they'll probably the horrible Windows 8 instead

pjmlp 6y ago
They acknowledged that with Project Reunion, where Win32 and UWP are supposed to be merged, but with what is going on, and probably other internal issues, it has been very slow at bringing out that vision.
samfisher83 6y ago
windows 7 was good. They could have just stopped with it. Make some security upgrades and call it a day.
- pjmlp 6y ago
  Sinofsky....

alkonaut 6y ago

Hope they aim for consistency in the refresh. I don't mind constant refreshes or redesigns. I don't care that I'm slightly less efficient in the modern settings pages than in the old control panel. I'm happy to lose a bit of efficiency to have a nice design. Just like I want web pages to have a nice design even at a (reasonable) cost of readability or usability. But what does bug me is when the refreshes are half baked. Either refresh everything visible and hide the old one entirely behind some obscure command if it must remain, or don't refresh at all.

leoedin 6y ago
I hate it so much when I want to do some obscure thing on Windows, but when I go to the place you used to be able to do it, it's gone! Replaced with a "modern" control panel which doesn't support that obscure thing. Instead, I have to find my way to the old window via a different route. Eventually the original control panel pops up and I can change that setting. I don't have a problem with changing things if it replaces all the functionality.
syshum 6y ago
Modern Settings is TERRIBLE and missing a crap ton of options that were better in Control Panel... It is trying to do to must "automatically" for you instead of just letting you control the system.
- alkonaut 6y ago
  Yep. So it's really not finished. In order to be finished, it obviously has to do everything. Since the old UX must exist forever for compat, I could accept some part of the most extreme settings to be hidden there (After all - in the end we are still resorting to registry edits for anything that isn't in the control panel!) - but the network card settings, audio device settings that are used by almost every user, is still in the old world. It works, but navigation is confusing, the experience switching between different paradigms is jarring, you can't search for things from the top level and find it in the control panel and so on. They have eft it at 60% finished instead of the 95% or 99% that would make it actually usable.
6y ago

51Cards 6y ago

"This UI refresh will reportedly include an overhaul to the Start Menu, Action Center and some in-box/bundled Microsoft apps, and they will be an optional change. " Call me cynical but I doubt they will be "optional" for long. At launch perhaps, but Microsoft has tended to transition the "optional" into the "default" then into the "only" version in the past.

ExcavateGrandMa 6y ago

Ho dear, again? :D

WhoCaresLies 6y ago

if it was only just the UI the internals of the OS are also problematic on top of that UWP/XAML story is not really that good when you compare to SwiftUI on macOS the whole macOS experience is what they should AIM for but that means giving up on all the legacy bits that keep stacking up since forever.. Windows need a massive spring cleanup, i'd say a reboot, but i'm not sure the people are microsoft are this courageous, i have the feeling they are just lazy

eyelidlessness 6y ago

Maybe I’m just coming from a place of ignorance (I haven’t used Windows for years), but why? The Win10 UI looks to me probably the most attractive and usable it’s ever been. Enough so that I’d probably feel comfortable switching to it if I decided the Mac isn’t for me anymore. Not that I don’t trust MS’s recent design direction, but I have to wonder if such a major overhaul is warranted.

spoonjim 6y ago
Windows 10 has a lot of problems. There are two different control panels!
- runjake 6y ago
  Don't bring that up, they may get rid of the older, more usable one!
  - WastingBody 6y ago
    Nah, they'll just add a third option.
    - ogre_codes 6y ago
      Thanks for making me laugh. This is by far the most Microsoft comment ever.
      - tartoran 6y ago
        And whatever they miss in the third option they’ll shove it in a fourth one then a subsequent version they’ll do some infuriatinng consolidation between the two that will drive users mad even more, the tutorials will be pointing users to all sort of methods that no longer work. That’s the way Windows’s been. Every other 2 iterations they eventually got it working but the disaster inbetween was the most frustrating experience. No wonder people held onto older version of windows until they no were no longer supported. Upgrading wasn’t worth the wased time most of the time

bengale 6y ago

I eagerly await a third control panel.

xyst 6y ago

who cares about the ui? why can't they just fix their shitty os? even wsl2 is known to break git repositories for unknown reasons. my only use for windows is for gaming use cases, otherwise I stick with linux

yboris 6y ago

Worth mentioning Windows 10X -- seems like it's coming eventually. https://blogs.windows.com/windowsexperience/2019/10/02/introducing-windows-10x-enabling-dual-screen-pcs-in-2020/ https://blogs.windows.com/windowsexperience/2019/10/02/intro...

jolux 6y ago

If they could just consolidate the half-dozen control panels with both overlapping and disjoint functionality I would be happy.

yboris 6y ago

side comment: An animated pie chart of most popular desktop & laptop operating systems from 2003 to 2020. https://twitter.com/randal_olson/status/1344021969096720384 https://twitter.com/randal_olson/status/1344021969096720384

trident5000 6y ago

I wonder how much more they will prod me to move all my files to their servers/cloud. And then how many more times per week they will force me to shut down my computer and update it. Its almost like they are moving to PC as a service. I anticipate ill be moving to Linux pretty soon.

boxmonster 6y ago
I'm in the Windows 10 beta program. I don't even think much about the 2 times a month I'm asked to restart my machine.
- trident5000 6y ago
  I run programs that cannot afford for windows to tell me I need to shut my computer down especially within certain hours of the day. I'm usually ok but they should set the automatic updates to default but give users some sort of option. AaronFriel you can only pause for a few weeks and you need to keep doing that in perpetuity. That said, its not so much impossible to work around, its just annoying and feels like an encroachment. If I want to run my PC as a server with near 100% uptime then just let me do it. moksly, an enterprise license is for 500+ employees and will have a cost to match that.
  - AaronFriel 6y ago
    You can pause updates.
    - Shared404 6y ago
      That's not enough. I had a client have a commercial CNC project screwed up because Windows decided it was done pausing, or didn't give them the obvious option. I wasn't onsite to pause it myself.
      - jgalt212 6y ago
        We were similarly almost bit in the @ass a few times during the lockdowns when no one was around to stop the Windows boxes from doing what they wanted, or were centrally commanded, to do. I don't recall if we found a workaround, or were able to get someone in the office to do the reboots.

refracture 6y ago

You know it's sad when I feel no anxiety over a major redesign. It's so awful right now that the idea of them throwing it all in the trash and starting over is very appealing.

incrudible 6y ago
I still have that anxiety. I think it's fine now and I don't want Microsoft to go crazy on UI again.

PascLeRasc 6y ago

If I could have two things out of the new UI: Right now you can't blindly mouse up and over in Microsoft Edge to get to the leftmost tab since that space is reserved for the browser window and clicking it will un-maximize the window or minimize it when you click again expecting to arrive at your email. I'd also like to be able to open Internet Explorer when I open the start menu, type in "internet explorer" and click the listing with the IE logo marked "Internet Explorer" Around half the time this opens Microsoft Edge. This is probably asking for too much though.

partiallypro 6y ago

I look forward to this, but I have been hearing about a major UI overhaul to make the Windows UI "beautiful" since Windows 10 launched...and it has basically never happened. It is incredible how Apple can launch a major UI overhaul (which I think looks great) while Microsoft has more or less the same look as Windows did when 10 first launched (granted it has gotten some good features since then.) Edit: this thread is full of Linux stans (I use Linux too!) calling Windows a POS... I don't see how that is helpful or relevant to anything. Windows is actually...very good. It has some problems, but uh, using Linux and even MacOS, every OS has its share of problems/difficulties.

tylerjwilk00 6y ago
How is comparing the UI/UX of one OS to another OS _NOT_ relevant to an article about one OS UI/UX revamp?
- partiallypro 6y ago
  I'm not sure what you mean? I just compared the UI/UX to MacOS...that is relevant. Others in the thread simply saying "Windows is a POS" etc etc is not relevant.

sitzkrieg 6y ago

user interfaces have only gotten worse since windows 2000

everydayDonut 6y ago

It would be great if they let you customize the start menu tiles. All my videogames looked like crap, unless they were from xbox gamepass. It takes a lot of work to use third party tile apps, and you can't even pin a UWP app through it

rootsudo 6y ago

They've already rebranded alot of roles, no longer is there a "TAM" role. Product manager/Program manager next it seems...

screye 6y ago

I am hoping for UX refresh instead of a UI refresh. UI is on the surface, UX is everything else. I am genuinely hoping for more pen & touch-screen focused accomodations too. The keyboard/mouse experience for windows is already decent enough, but these new input devices need help. This is especially true with the ipad pro becoming more of a general purpose computing device. Lastly, I hope windows puts more care into revamping curation of various app/program stores/managers. Chocolatey is great, but is a pain to use and isn't as widely supported. The windows store has a few gems in what is a sea f spam apps. Lastly Lastly, better native tiling, search and workspace management please. (I know powertoys exists, but why not integrate it directly)

rodarmor 6y ago

I look forward to a redesign of some, but not all, of the system preferences, so that there are three distinct styles of preference pane with different partially disjoint sets of options, that you have to go hunting through to find the setting you want.

arduinomancer 6y ago
Ehh I bet that will happen again. I can just picture some PM somewhere: "Well most of our users aren't using those settings, why bother putting in dev time to update them. Lets just push out the main UI update as an MVP then come back later* and update the more obscure settings." *Narrator: "they didn't"
- mwcampbell 6y ago
  > *Narrator: "they didn't" I know you weren't referring to Narrator the screen reader here, but I can't resist. While I was on the Windows accessibility team, which owns Narrator, we actually did phase out the old Narrator settings UI in favor of the new, UWP-based one.
randylahey 6y ago
Only three? I'm pretty sure I can already count at least 3 UI fads that have come and gone in my Windows 10 install. Somehow it's gotten worse each time... I'm trying not to sound like a grumpy old man but it feels like each revision is more geared towards mobile device users and the product sees a corresponding loss of flexibility and configurability.
phillco 6y ago
It's like looking at the rings of a redwood tree. You can navigate all the way down to a Windows 3.1 form in some places.
- sp332 6y ago
  The last place I knew of was in the fonts management, but they removed that one. Are there some left?

jpalomaki 6y ago

Hopefully they will explore tiling window manager concepts further. I think one area for productivity improvement is to make it easier to split screen between apps. Of course it’s doable already, but could be better and easier.

wayneftw 6y ago

I don't understand why everybody is concerned about the settings or the control panel interfaces. Is that really what you're dealing with all day? I spend as little time as possible messing with that stuff. Does it run your apps? Is the window management bearable? Are things running fast and responsive? Those are my concerns.

e232e 6y ago

I want the classic theme back.

Krasnol 6y ago

It'll be BACK for me when I won't have to use Open Shell but somehow I feel it'll become even more necessary...

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

spacemanmatt 6y ago

I have been using Windows since 2.x (It actually ran on my IBM PS/2 model 25) and I have this to say to Microsoft about their GUIs: You are boring and have developed no imagination in 30 years.