Small tweaks make Cortana a lot more appealing

Dec 16, 2014 13:17 GMT  ·  By

Even though Cortana is quite a key feature for Windows Phone, and soon for Windows 10 too, Microsoft isn’t actually paying so much attention to the way it looks, but rather to the options it provides to users on smartphones and desktop PCs.

As a result, Cortana’s looks are rather basic and couldn't really impress Windows users, but luckily, designers across the world have already found some very simple ways to improve its interface.

James Bartlett posted on Behance his very own modern version of Cortana, making the personal assistant a bit more eye candy with help coming right from Microsoft’s services.

Small tweaks for a dramatic improvement

If you look at the pictures in the photo gallery below, you will see that Cortana is a lot more visually appealing in this concept, even though the designer made only subtle tweaks to its looks.

For example, he used the Bing home page photo of the day as Cortana’s background and the result is obviously better than the existing version which uses an all-black wallpaper. Of course, it shouldn’t be too difficult for Microsoft to make Bing’s photos available on Cortana, at least as an option, so this is quite one of the things that are really doable in future updates.

The other changes are minor, so we really doubt that Microsoft wouldn’t be able to implement all of these in Cortana.

“Additionally, I added in a Bing Vision icon since it just seems odd that it's missing, and updated the Microphone to match iconography in recent builds of Windows 10, as I suspect Metro might be getting a refresh,” the designer explained.

More improvements very likely

Microsoft is indeed rather focused on making Cortana more reliable and effective, but there’s no doubt that the company will soon start improving its looks as well.

At this point, the biggest project for the Windows Phone team is version 10 of their operating system, which, according to sources, could see daylight in preview form next month during a Windows 10 event.

Windows Phone 10 will undoubtedly bring a plethora of improvements to smartphones running Microsoft’s operating system and Cortana could very well get its share of enhancements.

Gabriel Aul, head of the Windows Insider program, has said that Redmond is looking at every Windows concept published online, so let’s just hope that someone at the software giant comes across this new Cortana modern implementation as well.

Windows Phone Cortana concept (8 Images)

Cortana with Bing daily wallpapers
Cortana conceptCortana for Windows Phone concept
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