14 DAY TRIAL // Rumors swirling around the web indicated that Microsoft’s Fluent Design, which powers the design transformation that Windows 10 is going through, could also bring some less-anticipated visual touches, including rounded corners instead of the existing sharp ones.
While a rounded Windows 10 UI is something that appears to divide users worldwide in two sides, Microsoft has already published a design proposal on GitHub to discuss a series of points, including the setbacks the company would have to deal with should it decide to move forward with rounded corners.
“Update default control styles with rounded corners and make them easy to customize. Developers should not have to retemplate the controls to "unround" the corners or round them further,” Sravya Vishnubhatla, Program Manager in Microsoft’s Windows Fluent Design team, tells developers on GitHub.
Users posting in a discussion thread on reddit, which also calls for Microsoft to provide “a system-wide choice between rounded corners and the current UI look,” claim that while the design change could generate more controversy over the consistency in Windows 10, sticking with a simple choice like a 2px border on all controls is something that could work.
More consistency
Indeed, the purpose of Microsoft embracing rounded corners is to create more consistency across Windows 10, as this is a concept that the company has been struggling to deal with for several releases already.
But at the same time, there are users who believe that going for rounded corners is something that just brings Windows 10 too close to mobile operating systems like iOS.
“To me its way to similar to the iOS looks and totally lost the distinctive Windows 10 fluent design look. Right now Windows 10 looks different but mostly in a good way,” one user posting in the linked thread says.
Needless to say, this transition won’t just happen overnight, but the GitHub proposal is pretty much the first step of another system-wide transition that Microsoft is very likely to make in Windows 10. If everything goes according to the plan, expect to see more evidence of this visual facelift in the coming months.