Back in November, details emerged of Microsoft"s plans to make improvements to its Windows 10 user interface as part of its Redstone 3 update, which is due to arrive towards the end of 2017. Being developed under the codename "Project Neon", further information was revealed last month, including details of new transparency effects, and a more responsive and "fluid" interface, with a greater emphasis on typography.
Today, Microsoft has been hosting its Windows Developer Day, where it announced its new Windows Platform bug tracker and UWP roadmap, as well as confirming that it will bring Universal Windows Platform games to the Xbox One later this year. But in one of today"s sessions at that event - "Build Beautiful, Engaging UX", hosted by Harneet Sidhana - Microsoft also offered a tantalizing glimpse of the changes coming to the Windows 10 interface.
The revisions appeared in a single screenshot, briefly glimpsed behind a title slide at the start of the presentation. The image below shows the design changes as they appeared on the live stream:
...and the following image has been enhanced to better highlight some of the details in that screenshot:
The screenshot shown in the presentation closely matches the images that were revealed in January, hinting at a much "cleaner" interface with fewer fussy details.
It certainly doesn"t show much that we didn"t already know - but it does confirm that the information that was previously revealed was remarkably accurate. The slide also notes that these changes - intended to "make beautiful, engaging experiences possible on the Windows platform" - are all part of the "Windows "Redstone" wave", which includes the upcoming Creators Update, due to arrive around April.
Many of the APIs and other resources required to take advantage of these UX updates are already baked into the latest Creators Update preview builds, so developers should be able to take advantage of them before the Windows 10 Redstone 3 update introduces those interface changes across the OS.
Source: Microsoft Windows Developer Day livestream via MSPoweruser