Windows 11 Pro Overview
Windows 11. The main part of this announcement would 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 will not come to market. Now, as expected, the Windows 11 information leak begins.
Windows 11 Pro Features
Windows 11 will receive a completely new design. Microsoft clearly needs a good reason to reverse its previous claims and still abandon Windows 10 by introducing a new operating system number. And a completely new design is fantastic for that. The Redmond giant has long been preparing a redesign for an update codenamed Sun Valley (“Sun Valley”); Apparently, under that name it was Windows 11. The Sun Valley project flashed on the network for a long time: Microsoft regularly reveals details of the new interface style, experts shared previously unknown information, and popular designers in their circles drew realistic concepts based on all this data.
The home and system elements will float above the bottom bar. Start is the business card and face of all recent versions of Windows. It is not surprising that in Windows 11 the developers transformed it again, but not so much in functional terms as in visual terms: the Start window will be located above the bottom bar. We have to admit that this small change makes the system look much newer. Judging by the information on the network, Microsoft will not radically change the “inside” of this menu – the innovations will only affect the design of the window itself. The control panel will also float, and its design will be exactly the same as that of “Start”. The action center will be combined with the control buttons – a similar one has long been used in some other operating systems. Almost all mentions of this new menu indicate that it will be an island: control buttons will be located on a separate panel, notifications on another, and specific elements (such as a player) on a separate one.
Right angles will disappear and will be replaced by fillets. In fact, experts and concept designers disagree on this point: some are confident that Microsoft will not change its traditions and will keep right angles, while others are convinced that in 2021 Microsoft will follow the fillet fashion. The latter fits better with the definition of “completely new windows”: floating menus alone are not enough for a new design to be considered truly new. The files are expected to affect practically the entire system – from context menus and system panels to all application windows. True, even on this issue the opinions of concept designers differ: some draw fillets on all possible interface elements, others combine them with right angles.
There will be a translucent background with blur everywhere. There is disagreement on the web about the island style of window display, the corner design, and the menu levitation effect, but almost everyone is unanimous about the transparency of windows. The vast majority of design leaks and renders show transparency and blur in all windows, whether at least in the Start menu or in Explorer. Moreover, these effects are manifested even in the build of the canceled Windows 10X operating system, which Microsoft was developing for devices with two screens and weak devices in parallel with the Sun Valley project. The so-called acrylic transparency implies the use of new effects when hovering over elements, as well as increased space between elements: those areas of the interface with which the user interacts will surely become larger, and page titles will thicken.
New font that has already been shown. Windows 11 will likely use the default responsive Segoe UI variable font, which already appeared in Windows 10 Build 21376 for Insiders.