Windows 11 Pro Overview Windows 11
The main part of this announcement was supposed to be the presentation of a significant change in the user interface codenamed Sun Valley. As we know, a significant part of the UX changes will be borrowed from the Windows 10X shell, and Windows 10X is not coming to the market. Now, as expected, information about Windows 11 is beginning to leak. Features of Windows 11 Pro Windows 11 will receive a completely new design. Microsoft clearly needs a good reason to reverse its previous claims and still reject Windows 10 by introducing a new number for the operating system.
And a completely new design is great for this
The Redmond giant has long been preparing a redesign for the update codenamed Sun Valley (“Sun Valley”) – apparently, under this name was Windows 11. The Sun Valley project has been flashing on the network for a long time – Microsoft regularly revealed details of the new interface style, insiders shared previously unknown information, and popular designers in their circles drew realistic concepts based on all this data. The Start and system elements will float above the bottom bar. Start is the calling card and face of every new version of Windows. It is not surprising that in Windows 11, developers will transform it again, but not so much in a functional sense as in a visual one – the Start window will float above the bottom bar.
The right angles will disappear, they will be replaced by rounding
We must admit that this small change makes the appearance of the system much fresher. Judging by information from the network, Microsoft will not radically change the “interior” of this menu – innovations will affect only the design of the window itself. The control panel will also float, and its design will be exactly the same as in the “Start”. The action center will be combined with control buttons together – a similar one has long been used in some other operating systems. Almost all mentions of this new menu indicate that it will be island – the control buttons will be located on one separate panel, notifications will be on another, and specific elements (like players) on another separate panel.
There will be a transparent background with blur everywhere
True, insiders and concept designers disagree on this issue – some are convinced that Microsoft will not change its tradition and will retain right angles, while others are convinced that in 2021 Microsoft will follow the fillet fashion. The latter fits better into the definition of “Completely new Windows” – floating menus alone are not enough for the new design to be considered truly new. Fillets are expected to affect almost everything in the system, from context menus and system panels to all application windows. True, even on this issue, the opinions of concept designers differ – some draw borders in all possible interface elements, others combine them with right angles. On the web, they disagree about the island style of window display, corner design and the effect of menu levitation, but almost everyone is unanimous about the transparency of windows.
The new font that has already been shown
The vast majority of leaks and design renders show transparency and blur in all windows, be it at least the Start menu or Explorer. Moreover, these effects are even part of the canceled Windows 10X operating system, which Microsoft was developing in parallel with the Sun Valley project for dual-screen devices and weak gadgets. The so-called acrylic transparency implies the use of new effects when hovering over elements, as well as increasing the distance between elements – those areas of the interface with which the user interacts will certainly become larger, and page titles will be bold. Windows 11 will most likely use the default responsive font Segoe UI Variable, which has already appeared in Windows 10 Build 21376 for Insiders.