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martinnn
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Joined Mar 31, 2020
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I figured out why Edge still uses Material Design: it's a strategy, not laziness.
New Edge uses a blend of Google's Material Design and Microsoft's Fluent Design. (Clarification on where Material Design can still be seen is at the bottom of this post). But I now think this is a strategy, instead of laziness (as I initially thought). The more that Edge looks like Chrome, the more people think "it's just Chrome, but uses less RAM." As evidenced by https://www.reddit.com/r/me_irl/comments/mdhtom/me_irl/ (and basically anywhere Edge is mentioned), that's what consumers think about Edge. So although I've seen plenty of people try to convince the Edge dev team to switch the browser to Fluent Design (and as much as I would like it), I don't think it's ever going to happen--not because they're lazy, but because it helps the reputation of the browser (even if it doesn't have any unique identity). Where Material Design can be seen: Menus (like right click menus and the "..." menu) fade into view instead of slide in. Tooltips don't have any animation (like they do in Fluent Design), so they still look like Chrome. Some of the loading wheels have been changed from Chromium (like in the tab when a page is loading), but others (like in the Update page of Settings, and even in Collections (which is weird since it's a feature that's unique to Edge)) retain the loading wheel found in all of Google's products. This means that all of these menus resemble Material design menus instead of Fluent design ones. The scrollbars look like Chrome's instead of any Fluent Design app. When hovering the mouse over items in the toolbar, there is a delay on the items being highlighted. This is from Chromium and doesn't match any other default Windows app, where they either have the "reveal" effect or they just are highlighted immediately. This delay also has the added detriment of making the browser feel a little more sluggish.2.3KViews0likes2CommentsRe: Dev channel update to 90.0.782.0 is live
I like the new What's Next page. From it, it looks like Edge will almost be on par with Firefox by the end of the year. Unfortunately there is that hurdle of touchscreen compatibility, but I don't think anybody expected that to be planned at this point anyway.12KViews2likes0CommentsRe: Top Feedback Summary for December 1
I'm glad to see the progress being done on Edge! I could easily see it being on par with Firefox within a year, so long as the iOS app is fixed or at least the ability to send pages to it is added. Unfortunately that isn't on the list though...10KViews1like0CommentsRe: Top Feedback Summary for November 17
We can certainly hope that they'll use WinUI. If they haven't made any real effort to make Edge align with Fluent Design now, I think it's pretty likely that Edge will still keep Material Design going into the future. But Edge's design is still good--Google did a great job with it!9.4KViews1like2CommentsRe: Top Feedback Summary for November 17
There are still a LOT of design changes to be made. Tooltips, dropdown menus, and right-click menus are all still Material Design and not Fluent Design and are inconsistent with the rest of Windows (no transparency, no reveal effects, no animations). The new icons are also inconsistent with the rest of Windows, unless icons will be updated across the rest of Windows too (any information on that? [EDIT: looking more closely https://medium.com/microsoft-design/developing-an-open-source-icon-system-at-microsoft-b1796315df9f, it looks like the new icons are going to be the same across all of Microsoft]). Material Design loading wheels can still be found in HTML video and in the Updates section of the Settings menu. Why is "Update the user interface with the Fluent Design System" being marked as any form of "addressed" when there is still so much that is inconsistent with Fluent Design? Only one small portion of the design is being changed, and even that is inconsistent with Fluent Design since it's using mobile icons in a desktop space (which would be consistent if these icons are being updated across all of Microsoft, but we haven't heard anything about that).9.7KViews2likes1CommentThe new icons in Canary make Edge's design feel even more disconnected from Windows.
https://mspoweruser.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/full-page-screen-capture-edge.jpg in Canary don't match those of the rest of the Windows operating system. In any Windows app, the settings icon has 8 spokes on the gear--you can see this in the Start menu and in the settings icon in apps like Microsoft News, Photos, and Camera. The normal Home icon can be seen in the Windows Settings app and in Backstage View in the Microsoft Office apps. The new Canary channel icons don't match those anymore. It makes Edge's design even more inconsistent with Windows's design than it already is. It's bad enough that Edge retains Material Design from Chromium, but it's worse that Edge is going to replace the only parts of the design that feel consistent with Windows. To my knowledge, Fluent design has separate mobile and desktop icons to feel natural on every device. Mobile icons should not be used on Windows. EDIT: looking more closely at their wording on the iconography and https://medium.com/microsoft-design/developing-an-open-source-icon-system-at-microsoft-b1796315df9f, it looks like the new icons are going to be the same across all of Microsoft.A list of design problems with Edge
Controls don't match equivalents of the modern parts of the Windows system and default apps Tooltips (no transparency or fade-in) Right-click/context menus (no transparency or animations) Dropdown menus (no transparency or animations) Hover effects (no reveal effects) And they're also delayed, which makes the browser feel more sluggish Loading wheels for HTML video and in the Updates section of Settings The new icons in Canary This puts mobile icons in a desktop space, which makes it feel inconsistent with desktop apps (this would be fine as long as the rest of Windows and Outlook on the Web are also getting icon refreshes to match mobile icons, but we haven't heard anything about this) Apart from the font and the current iconography, Edge keeps Material Design from Chromium. Anything I'm forgetting? EDIT: looking more closely at their wording on the iconography and https://medium.com/microsoft-design/developing-an-open-source-icon-system-at-microsoft-b1796315df9f, it looks like the new icons are going to be the same across all of Microsoft.2.1KViews2likes5CommentsRe: Introducing new Fluent Iconography for Microsoft Edge
Will the rest of Windows and other non-mobile apps across the Microsoft ecosystem also be getting icon updates? The rest of Windows uses the icon set in the stable builds of Edge, and I'd hate to see Edge be the only Windows app to get an icon change and be even more inconsistent with Windows design than it already is. [EDIT: looking more closely https://medium.com/microsoft-design/developing-an-open-source-icon-system-at-microsoft-b1796315df9f, it looks like the new icons are going to be the same across all of Microsoft]31KViews4likes0CommentsRe: A list of design problems with Edge
The blue line in a circle is the loading wheel for Material Design, which is Google's design language that comes with Chromium. The Edge team didn't make it--they just didn't change it from Chromium. What you saying is exactly what I'm saying is inconsistent with Windows.2KViews2likes1CommentRe: Discussion - Updating our interface with Fluent touches
Elliot Kirk A list of design problems with Edge Controls don't match equivalents of the modern parts of the Windows system and default apps Tooltips (no transparency or fade-in) Right-click/context menus (no transparency or animations) Dropdown menus (no transparency or animations) Hover effects (no reveal effects) And they're also delayed, which makes the browser feel more sluggish Loading wheels for HTML video and in the Updates section of Settings The new icons in Canary This puts mobile icons in a desktop space, which makes it feel inconsistent with desktop apps (this would be fine as long as the rest of Windows and Outlook on the Web are also getting icon refreshes to match mobile icons, but we haven't heard anything about this4KViews1like2CommentsRe: The new icons in Canary make Edge's design feel even more disconnected from Windows.
As long as the UI update includes updating the icons to be the same as the icons for Microsoft's mobile apps, then it will be fine that Edge does this change. But they should definitely not implement this change in Edge before it comes to Windows. Edge already has a completely different design from Windows and they shouldn't make it worse than it already is.3.2KViews0likes0CommentsRe: The new icons in Canary make Edge's design feel even more disconnected from Windows.
As I mentioned in the post, I think the current icons are the ones that are consistent with Windows. Yes, Edge is multiplatform, but all of Microsoft's multiplatform apps have different icons for each platform. To Do is a great example of this--the app on mobile and on Windows has different icons for the default lists (different icons for My Day, Planned, and Tasks for example). Currently, the icons for Windows apps all have a consistent feel to them: thinner lines and sharper corners. The icons for mobile apps have a consistent feel too: thicker lines and rounder corners. But the new Edge Canary icons look like mobile icons on a Windows app and feel out of place.3.2KViews0likes1CommentRe: Windows 10 - Scrolling on touchscreens and writing with a pen
Here's a little tip: NEVER use Chromium Edge if you have a touchscreen device, period. It's a terrible experience. The only reason to use Chromium Edge over Classic Edge is that it can search through history and that they dropped syncing functionality with Classic Edge.8KViews1like0Comments
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