Beautifully useful: Introducing a new look for OneDrive.
Published Oct 09 2017 08:46 AM 77.1K Views
Microsoft

Every day, millions of people rely on OneDrive and SharePoint to share documents, pictures, and countless other kinds of digital content. We've listened to your feedback and worked to create a refreshed experience to help you be even more productive. Today we're proud to announce a new experience across web and mobile that makes finding what’s important to you easier, while keeping you better up to date with what is going on with your files. You will see all these changes hit your device and browser before the end of the year.

 

  A laptop, a phone and a tablet showing OneDrive and SharePoint's new design for list and tiles.A laptop, a phone and a tablet showing OneDrive and SharePoint's new design for list and tiles.

Refreshed Design

 

Find your files faster with the new design for files & folders

  • The new layout uses your screen space more efficiently, and the uncluttered text styles make it easier to scan across file names and notice essential information quicker. New files jump out at you. Shared files are now easier to spot, and we’ve made thumbnails larger and more detailed. Why? Because OneDrive and SharePoint are alive, active and ever-changing. New files come in, others change, some get shared out. We heard from you that these changes needed to be more apparent, and we combined that knowledge with research about how the human eye parses items. The human eye is attuned to recognize familiar shapes and colors instantly. To take advantage of this, we modified the look of the files and folders in the list and tile views so it’s easier to find what you’re looking for.

 

A diagram illustrates the different layers of shapes and gradients that make up our new folder and file icon design.A diagram illustrates the different layers of shapes and gradients that make up our new folder and file icon design.

 

  • Cohesive theme and design across apps
    • Familiarity builds trust. As you move between devices from one moment to the next, thoughtful design decisions help remove friction and accelerate your day. To that end, we're refreshing the files experience across Android, iOS, Universal Windows Platform (UWP) and the web interfaces in OneDrive and SharePoint. Our bright and legible color palette is more harmonious with the Office 365 suite apps you rely on. So, whatever your working style, your content always feels right at home.

 

  • Preview files without opening them
    • When you store files in OneDrive, you can count on our rich viewer support for over 270 file types: Visio, Adobe formats like Photoshop, PDF and Illustrator, RAW, 3D and high-precision DICOM medical imagery to name just a few. Our preview-generation engine creates crisp thumbnails and large previews with incredible speed, and they look especially gorgeous on 4K and Hi-DPI displays like the Microsoft Surface Pro. These previews will make you more productive and find your files faster when you're using OneDrive.

To support changing trends and the latest apps you use, we've also completely re-worked our file icons to be modern and lightweight while keeping them familiar and recognizable. Our support for the latest high-resolution devices extends to these icons as well: we've generated over 4200 variations and sizes of icons to ensure your files look crisp on any device.

 

Screenshots for File Coherency Blog Post_Oct2017_blog3.png

 A diagram illustrates the alignment of visual elements that make up the design of all file type icons, and a selection of various icons used for different kinds of files.A diagram illustrates the alignment of visual elements that make up the design of all file type icons, and a selection of various icons used for different kinds of files.

 

  • New list flexibility and compact mode — We know efficiency matters to you, and sometimes it's the smallest details that can give you an edge. One of the frequent asks from some of our power users was a "high density list view" resembling Windows File Explorer. Today we're announcing a new compact list that packs more items into folder views across OneDrive and document libraries with an even more uncluttered layout, so you can handle thousands of items with ease.

Our regular and compact list design now lets you adjust column widths to flex to your data and your working style, which is especially handy for high-performance SharePoint solutions with custom file views and metadata.

 

A side-by-side comparison of the normal files list and the new compact list, showing how it shows you more items.A side-by-side comparison of the normal files list and the new compact list, showing how it shows you more items.

 

Smarter Connections

A closeup of some items in the OneDrive Recent view shows indicators that help you find popular or freshly created files.A closeup of some items in the OneDrive Recent view shows indicators that help you find popular or freshly created files.

 

  • Stay informed on what's popular — The cloud-powered Office graph gives you insight into how your contributions make an impact across your organization. Popular files show a trending indicator, so you no longer have to dig around to see what's hot and where you're influential.

 

  • Quickly locate new files — Quickly find that colleague's contributions with our "New Item Indicator", which is a small gleam that looks like eyelashes above files and folders. This makes items created within the last day easy to spot as you scroll through lists, tiles or the new OneDrive Recent view. This is especially useful in shared spaces like SharePoint team sites, where you can quickly catch up with the latest contributions.

 

  • File card reveals essential item metadata and insights — You want to understand the history, impact, influencers & collaborators around every file you share. The file card is a new way to peek into who has viewed your file and when. This unique capability, when coupled with our instant previewers and deep version history, lets you know more about what's happening with your files when you store them in OneDrive or SharePoint.

 

  • Powerful Recent Files view updates across OneDrive and Office — Just as Rome was not built in a day, neither are most documents. The updated Recent view in OneDrive, Office.com and the Office apps is more accurate and capable than ever, ensuring your content is consistent, familiar, and easy to find across all these places. All the utility and visual improvements listed above regarding icons, layout and signals are part of this experience. With OneDrive and Office, it's now even easier than ever to pick up where you left off.

 An image of OneDrive's Recent Files view, Office.com's Recent View and the same functionality as it appears in the PowerPoint app for Windows.An image of OneDrive's Recent Files view, Office.com's Recent View and the same functionality as it appears in the PowerPoint app for Windows.

 

  • Accessibility top of mind — We are committed to building for each and every one of our customers. The new list and tiles experience across OneDrive and SharePoint were built from the ground up with ease of use and accessibility in mind, compatible with narration and assistive devices and following the Microsoft Accessibility Standard.

 

We’ll be rolling out and refining this design across web, Windows, iOS and Android in the coming weeks, and we hope you find it every bit as useful and effortless to use as we do. Let us know what you think in UserVoice or the comments below.

 

 — Laura Shih & Carlos Pérez

     File Coherence Team

 

Please note: Pinning in recent view, file cards and trending information are not supported in the consumer edition at this time. Support for DICOM previews requires an Office 365 Business subscription.

44 Comments
Silver Contributor

A great article. Appreciate the insights into the design decisions taken to improve the OneDrive and SharePoint experiences.

Microsoft

Thanks John!

Silver Contributor

Fantastic set of updates. The attention to detail, with the icons alone, is amazing plus the overall design and the new features are looking great.

Very, very cool

Awesomeness!
Bronze Contributor

Great write up on the wonderful-ness of OneDrive.

Iron Contributor
Loving these updates good job team! One major issue I have at the moment is the copy to/ move to destination list not being sorted in alphabetical order, I now have several clients on my back about this. Any chance of changing the behaviour for This?

Great article. OneDrive and SharePoint team is doing awesome job. 

Very good article and great news about a product that have been evolve a lot lately!! Congrats OneDrive team!!! 

Brass Contributor

Great stuff! When is this going to be available? 

Copper Contributor

Looking forward to the features being rolled out.

Steel Contributor

Love the article and updates!

 

Will these guidelines/icons be added to Office UI fabric?

Brass Contributor
Looks really good. Just to make sure: The adjustments in column widths will be saved (unlike now), correct?
Iron Contributor

already seen @Ignite. Good to see that the updates starts rolling out!

 

 

Nice work.

 

Awesome article ! Waiting for rollout !

Brass Contributor

The link to Uservoice is broken...

Copper Contributor

I appreciate the new enhancements in design and layout and am confident that it will improve the daily work lives of the Information Workers within the organizations that I help with implementation. 

Brass Contributor

Hopefully one of the improvements will be support for multiple personal accounts in iOS and Android. That has been an option on Win 10, desktop and mobile (but who cares) for some time. I find myself having a much greater likelyhood of having more than one personal OneDrive account, than more than one Business/Enterprise OneDrive/Sharepoint account, though you can connect to as many of the latter as you want it seems, on any platform.

Copper Contributor

Great.

Deleted
Not applicable

Nice work

Deleted
Not applicable

This is great but I have a suggestion. I am tired of having the "Attachements" folder in my onedrive all the time. I delete it, it comes again and it is like it has to be there for ever, even when I have never used it. So, I suggest having an option for "turning off" this kind of folders, the ones that are all the time appearing becuase it is like they must be there even when you dont want them.

Steel Contributor

Hello

 

Something which is also important and not mentionned here (less sexy and not about th end-user experience) is that we will be able to remove groove.exe properly no more ugly hack

https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Changes-to-the-previous-OneDrive-sync-client-Groove-exe-in-...

Iron Contributor

If the new folder icons are not going to show a graphic, then I do NOT like them.  I love the fact that I can curate the folders in such a way that a .jpg can be used to make a bold and obvious statement as to the contents.  If they are going to be the boring gray icons in the example, NO THANK YOU.

Iron Contributor

Uservoice link does NOT work.  How convenient.

Copper Contributor

Great. Looks a whole lot better. The most pressing features for me are;

 

The ability to rename a file while I'm in preview mode

I often want to include numbers/codes from the file in the name, so I need to be able to see it while I type. Right now, I type the proposed new name into notepad, exit the preview screen and then rename the file.  (Vote for this in UserVoice)

 

The Ability to Comment on my files (and for others to comment)

As a company who have migrated from IBM connections, where this is available, it's a feature that I'm really missing.  I want to be able to comment, hashtag and @mention in the metadata (not the body) of my file. (Vote for this in UserVoice)

Microsoft

Robert, The link to UserVoice has been fixed. Thanks for calling that out.

Copper Contributor

Out of curiosity - will mp3 sound files also have a way to play embedded in the browser?

 

(I've noted that, as a Groove user, I have a "Play" button on my mp3s, even if they're not in my Music folder, on my Personal account. No such button on my work OneDrive for Business account, or on my wife's account since she doesn't really use Groove. Having an embedded player that doesn't open a new tab would be more ideal anyway.)

Steel Contributor

Great to see new updates in OneDrive. Nice article.

Iron Contributor

Great update, keep up the awesome work OneDrive team!

Iron Contributor

Looks like some great changes! Really looking forward to the improved higher density view, especially if it also comes to the UWP app?

 

So now that the right side of the window looks more like Windows File Explorer, hopefully more attention will be put on the left side? If the left side could be a little bit more like file explorer as well, I think a lot of our users would be happy. For instance, a tree view for folding out and showing current location in the folder hierarchy would be reallly useful. Navigating via breadcrumbs is just not as efficient.

Copper Contributor

Fantastic set of updates!

 

I'd love the ability to always see the recent file view when I go to OneDrive on the web as my typical behaviour is to open one of the last files I've been working on. 

Copper Contributor

Looking great! But I wonder when I will be able to use it. 'Cause it says it's rolling out "in the coming weeks". But a couple of weeks have passed sincethe writing of this article and I still don't have any of the new features, nor the new, beautiful design...

Microsoft

Heimen

 

It should be done rolling out by the end of the month.

Copper Contributor
Looks beautiful Stephen. I’m sure you know that many many iOS users are clamouring for ios11 Files app integration, as announced on June 5 by MS. Can we assume that this upgrade will include Files app integration? And of course, as is the way with tech, we want it yesterday!! Thanks.
Microsoft

Brett,

 

We demo'ed the Files app at Ignite (https://myignite.microsoft.com/sessions/53848?source=sessions) and showed off the new functionality.

Copper Contributor
Fantastic Stephen, love the preview feature and the extra display options. Thanks for replying...so, end of the month hmm??

@Stephen Rose We had quite a bit of negative feedback from our users about this change as the list of groups seems to have changed from showing all groups to followed groups, it would have been nice to have been prepared for that. I would also note that I can't find any kind of documentation on support.office.com about Following sites with anything like the new UI.

Steel Contributor
Copper Contributor

@Stephen Rose Two months have passed and it's still not rolled out...

Microsoft

Not sure what you mean Heimen, if you visit the OneDrive for Business webclient, you’ll see the changes mentioned in this blog. 

Copper Contributor

@Stephen Rose - am I mistaken, or have none of these new features made it to IOS11 versions of OneDrive? 

 

Its very difficult to get accurate information, however it appears that iOS Files appbeen integrated. Any information you have on this would be gratefully accepted!

Silver Contributor

How long does the new item indicator show for an item?  I have a couple of users asking.

Brass Contributor

@Stephen Rose any reason why in our tenant we would see the Compact List view in Internet Explorer but not in Chrome, Edge or FireFox?  All we can do in those browsers is toggle between tile view and details view.  I see the Compact List view option in OneDrive under my personal O365 account, so clearly it's not a browser issue. 

Copper Contributor

Hello

Re OneDRive for Business:

Does anyone know how to do a 'reset' of the 'RECENT' menu item, for example:

 

I have OFB on a Mac and Windows, on Iphone, and Android., Also utilise the 'WEB OneDrive.com)

All with the same login.

 

I 'SORT OF' understand that the 'web Onedrive' displays under 'recent' the data that has been uploaded/synchronised,

If that has been created/amended in say Word/Excel, etc, these apps maintain their own 'recent' items (ie a subset of what you may see in OneDrive)

 

Because the 'recent lists' are not the same, (which I expect was the developed intention??), The Android 'recent' is different from the 'web Onedrive recent.

 

I would like to understand what process on each of the platforms updates and manages these 'recent' lists.:

 

Also, for some simplicity, HOW can you 'RESET' the recent lists back to Zero, and see if a clean start, sorts out my problem.

I think the use of the word 'RECENT' in both the apps (Word/EXcel), and using the same word in the OneDrive, unfortunately  is confusing

It is what it is, but a better way would have been to have had Onedrive item labelled 'HISTORY', OR at the very least, to indicate in someway, in the OneDRive list, what has come from an upload , and what has come from an application.

 

Not least, the Recent list contains data, that has  been deleted. 

 

This is why I need a RESET function.

 

Any Ideas or suggestions??

 

/ Norman

 

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