At its Ignite conference back in November 2021, Microsoft announced that it is redesigning the Office.com and Office for Windows interfaces to enhance productivity for commercial customers. At that time, rollout began in a staggered manner, but now, Microsoft has stated that the Office.com revamp will be available to all business and education consumers by the end of this week.
As can be seen in the screenshot above, there are multiple improvements present in this design revamp that are meant to improve file management and content sharing.
There is a Create pane on the left which offers a unified UI to create different types of files with built-in templates. This will make it easier to get up and running with a brand new file in no time. We see this in our personal Office.com interface too. IT admins can enhance this space further by including branded templates owned by their company.
There is also a new My Content pane that offers you all content that is linked to you, regardless of how it has been shared with you. This includes, files, meeting recordings, and Loops. Microsoft has also enabled Infinite Scroll in this section so you don"t have to tediously navigate between different pages of search results.
Finally, the Home interface itself has been redesigned with a Quick Access section where you can manage files using filters and get an overview of pertinent details.
Microsoft has noted that this new interface should be available for every business and education Office customer on the web and the Windows app by the end of this week. Moving forward, the company is looking to roll up these changes and enhancements to personal Microsoft 365 customers too.