The company’s interest in the redesign was announced by Jon Friedman, Microsoft’s Head of Microsoft Office design, in a blog post on Medium. Friedman writes that the aim of the design overhaul is to bring all of the products in line with Microsoft’s “Fluent Design” philosophy.
According to Microsoft, the philosophy “brings the fundamentals of principled design, innovation in technology, and customer needs together as one” and that it is “a collective approach to creating simplicity and coherence through a shared, open design system across platforms.” In short, all of Microsoft’s products such as Windows, Microsoft Office, Outlook, Paint, and dozens of others will now share a uniformed look that represents the brand. This also includes interface across all of its applications as well, to which the company hopes would bring a sense of familiarity to its users. Other redesigns include the application icons on the Windows operating system as well.
The company did not reveal when exactly they’re planning to roll out the redesign across its services and apps. That said, it’s not known if the user interface and icons on the upcoming Xbox Series X console would also reflect on the company’s Fluent Design approach. (Source: Microsoft via Medium.)