A recent (and now edited) job posting published by Microsoft indicates that the company is planning a major user interface overhaul this year. The now-amended list of jobs originally stated, as indicated by Windows Latest:
In this team, you will work with our flagship platform, Surface and OEM partners to orchestrate and provide a visual rejuvenation of Windows experiences to signal to our customers that Windows IS BACK and ensure that Windows is considered the best operating system experience in the world. for customers. “
The new text rejects these claims, but notes that one of the job’s attributes is: “working directly with our customers to understand their needs and deliver magical software that exceeds their expectations!” I hope you have a copy of “Conjuring With XAML” handy.
How can I miss you if you’re not leaving?
Thankfully, Microsoft replaced the original ad text, because the previous framework leaves us nothing but questions. Between them:
When did Windows leave?
Where did it go? It was a “Windows is BACK” in the sense of a drunk shouting an ad as they stumbled through the door at 2 am, or it was made to sound like the restaurant’s second scene in Superman II? In the latter case, who exactly is the abusive truck driver in this scenario? Google? Apple? IBM OS / 2? (Probably not OS / 2.)
The aforementioned scene included above, as it is rude to refer to 38-year-old superhero movies without a bit of footage.
Microsoft wants to “ensure that Windows is considered the best user operating system experience for customers.” That is a big goal. But again – who is the competition, here? The only two possibilities are Apple’s Chromebooks and macOS. There is definitely an argument that Windows could use a stronger stance against these competitors, but that will not come from a user interface overhaul.
Regarding the practical UI changes I would like to see:
It would be nice if Microsoft could migrate back to having a control panel / settings panel, but not if it requires dulling the existing control panel or burying the settings with a lot more clicks. The current system of “Sometimes you adjust things in the Control Panel, sometimes in Settings”, has been rubbish since it was released nine years ago with Windows 8.
A review of media playback. The small vertical rectangle to adjust the volume up and down is fine; the giant carve-out that updates itself if you inadvertently hover over it on the way to something else, isn’t it. An option to eliminate this behavior would be good.
Here are two other UI changes that I would like: Allow me to organize installed applications by the date they were installed. Bring back the use of color gradients in menus to make it easier to distinguish between the various options.
Finally, although it is not a UI request, it may fix the whole problem “We don’t scale up to 64 threads without using processor groups”. It’s not a big problem now, but it will probably be bigger in the future, considering how the main counts tend to drop in lower product markets over time.
Probably, the improvements that Microsoft really has in mind will be things like icon updates, along with adjustments to the File Explorer, Action Center and Start Menu. It is important to have an important and clearly communicated visual language, so I am not expending any effort to improve it. At the same time, I’m not sure that this reform will significantly change the Windows experience, unless Microsoft releases a new set of obscure standards to hide the method of creating a local Windows account or to trick you into believing that it’s not possible .
The number one reason for using Windows is that the software you want to use works well on Windows. This is exactly the same reason for using macOS or a Chromebook. If Microsoft created a way to improve battery life or performance by reviewing its operating system, that would be very interesting. A standard UI revision will likely contain some clean bits that we want, but not much that will change the underlying experience, despite the “magic” software.
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