14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft has recently announced a new set of improvements for Microsoft Office, revealing in a detailed blog post that it plans a new modern UI that would align with the direction the software giant is embracing for all of its products.
Microsoft Office has already received a series of visual changes as part of the Fluent Design treatment, and these include not only a dark mode, but also icons for every single app included in the suite.
And now Jon Friedman, corporate vice president of design and research at Microsoft, says this strategy would continue with improvements in all key areas, including in the ribbon.
This is good news, especially as the ribbon has become one of the essential parts of the productivity apps that are offered to Office customers.
“We’ve been on a multi-year design journey to create more focused, immersive experiences, from the single-line ribbon, to Dark Mode, to Fluent. The next wave of Microsoft 365 UX changes will go even further by fading brand colors from app headers and exploring adaptive commanding. A flexible ribbon that progressively discloses contextually relevant commands at the right time just where you need them,” Friedman says.
Search overhaul
The search feature will also benefit from a massive update, thus making it a lot easier to find the information that you’re looking for, but also content from the web, right within a document.
“We’ll further advance our seamless, cross-suite Search to bring relevant information to your fingertips, and myriad forthcoming experiences will leverage Fluid Frameworks. Microsoft 365 will bring the power of Office to wherever you are, ensuring you won’t need to interrupt your creative process to open a different tool,” the Microsoft exec explains.
Friedman details all the changes that Microsoft plans in a lengthy blog post that’s focused mostly on how Office aligns with the brand strategy, but right now, there’s no ETA as to when all these changes could land.
