Jan 13 2020 11:55 AM
Hi Insiders. We have received a whole lot of feedback on the overall design of the next version of Microsoft Edge. First off, we would like to thank you all for the feedback that you have submitted. We also want you to know that we are continuing to evolve the look and feel of the new Microsoft Edge. You can see our progress in our new icon, in the changes to dark theme, on the layout of the settings pages and in the style of the controls that we have added so far. Our goal has been to modernize the next version of Microsoft Edge while keeping the feel of the original. In the five years since we released the first Microsoft Edge browser with Windows 10, the Microsoft Design Language has and will continue to change and adapt. We have been evolving our user interface with this in mind and may be the first place you see some of these changes. We are planning on continuing to apply elements of the Microsoft Design Language to align with other Microsoft products.
We are thrilled with how much you think about the look and feel of the new Microsoft Edge browser. As we dug into the feedback, we found different ideas lumped together into very broad buckets and felt like we needed to re-sort the issues into new categories that are more specific to the actual issues that were being discussed. The previous categories that we have been reporting on are:
The first step of this journey was to dig into each of the feedback items individually and understand what your ask was, and if there was a reason listed for the feedback. This helped us better understand why you are asking for these changes. The next step we took was to recombine the feedback and sort it into more specific buckets. We understand change is challenging, and we are not changing our interface just to be different. We have been working closely with our designers to get a look and feel that aligns with our Fluent Design language and meets our standards for usability and accessibility. It is our goal for our design to be easier to use on a daily basis. When you provide feedback, it helps us to challenge our assumptions and makes us reanalyze our conclusions.
Based on this analysis, we are seeing the following themes emerge from your comments: we will be tracking and following feedback in these categories going forward:
We would love to start talking about these items now. Please let us know if you think that we are on the right track with the changes we have made so far. The most impactful feedback is that which lists the task that you are trying to accomplish, the challenges that you face while accomplishing it, and your ideas on how it could be made easier. Also, feel free to reach out if you think that we have missed something important here. We will always take feedback and suggestions to help us make this the best, fastest, most productive browser possible.
Jan 15 2020 11:49 AM
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Jan 15 2020 11:58 AM - edited Jan 15 2020 12:05 PM
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Jan 15 2020 12:56 PM - edited Jan 15 2020 12:57 PM
"Alright, yes, I could have phrased the part differently by saying it was my opinion. I agree."
Also, I really appreciate your intellectual honesty here, so thank you. That is not exactly easy to come by online, so I think this speaks very much in your favor.
Jan 15 2020 01:06 PM - edited Jan 15 2020 01:07 PM
1. Distinct colors/color themes - This would be very nice. The main thing is that currently, the dark theme isn't dark enough, and there's no way to disable the system theme color on the top bar without disabling it system-wide.
2. Transparency and material effect - I personally love the acrylic design and kind of miss it. However, there should be an on/off toggle if it is implemented. Additionally, the acrylic can either show the background behind the window or the actual webpage behind it. I personally prefer the latter. The acrylic could also be customizable if 1. is implemented. I don't think transparency/acrylic should be implemented outside of Windows 10 and macOS, though; it would be very out of place on Linux and Windows 7 and 8.
3. Less rounding - While the corners have been rounded, it's honestly not a lot. This is very much something that needs to be tested, with the tests being less corner rounding and no corner rounding. Feedback will be everything.
4. Smaller tab band - I actually like the current size. It might be fine if it was 10% smaller, but it's not really important. However, the right-click menu should be much smaller on devices without touch. Additionally, it wouldn't be a bad idea to make the address bar not expand across the entire length of the window, although that is something that would very much need testing and feedback. Lastly, some of the buttons could be a little bit smaller since they're currently very wide and spaced-out.
5. Animation - Y e s. Make sure that turning off animations for Windows also turns them off in the browser, though.
6. Reveal effect - This makes the browser more consistent with the operating system, so sure.
Other suggestions:
- Look into getting the overlay scrollbar back into the browser. The experimental flag kind of died since it hasn't officially been merged in, but it's much nicer than the normal scrollbar in my opinion.
- Give us the ability to set a custom background on new tab pages instead of just "Image of the Day." If you do implement this, please have the option to use the current desktop wallpaper (so the new tab page background matches up even with slideshow). Alternatively, there could be an option for the new tab page background to be background acrylic, showing whatever is behind the window. On top of that, there could be an acrylic setting for all image backgrounds.
- Make the InPrivate box blue and boxy; currently it's gray and very, very rounded, or at least the latest update broke the icon. Also, I like the old InPrivate icons (from legacy Edge) much better than the new ones.
Jan 15 2020 01:23 PM
Hey, i would like to see the following in future builds:
Additionally i wouldn't like if you change back the rounded corners to square corners. imo rounded corners look more modern :)
Jan 15 2020 01:50 PM
@adrianghc What you said in the last paragraph was very true actually. I didn't think about that at first. Different opacities could help like you said, and placing an inset shadow (projecting off of the address bar etc pane onto the tab view pane) also may help with the seams between the two types of Acrylics. I think also there are many ways to impliment this. But in the end, in my opinion we need some kind of background acrylic. I think a mix of in-app and background would be nice.
Jan 15 2020 02:33 PM
Great categories to focus on! I see touch mentioned, and I really hope you improve there. Just today I installed the release version on a Surface device, and it was a sad experience in Tablet mode using touch. For instance, extension buttons are near impossible to tap in the address bar, tab handling is hopeless, and there's something off with the touch keyboard. And that was from the first minutes of use!
Looking forward to improvements over the coming months!
Jan 15 2020 02:56 PM
Jan 15 2020 02:56 PM
@Elliot Kirk I definitely think adding Acrylic and Reveal effects will do wonders for making Edge Chromium feel much less out of place among the other Windows apps. However, when it comes to the Acrylic effect for the title bar, it shouldn't be as strong as it used to be. Something like To-Do would work beautifully, keeping those lovely blur effects without impacting readability:
Jan 15 2020 02:57 PM
@Carmello B. wrote:
Me too. And we had it before, but the darned new Edge had to remove it! I really hope that they add it back. Edge needs it BAD.
um what?
Jan 15 2020 02:59 PM
@Elttob In addition, it'd be nice to have background acrylic on context menus, like the menus you see elsewhere in Windows: