Windows 11 brings a new design to the operating system and applications, allowing us to break away from the Metro interface since Windows 8. Microsoft’s Fluent Design is a continuous design language journey, it continues to evolve with the evolution of Windows, but it has not touched every part of Windows and Microsoft applications.
With the release of Windows 11, Microsoft is rethinking its Fluent Design approach and implementing its new design language on all its applications and pages. As part of the overhaul, Windows 11 is also equipped with a new design material called Mica. Mica is a soft dynamic material that brings the theme closer to the desktop wallpaper. Its role is obvious when you browse settings or first-party applications such as Edge. Mica will color the background of several application windows and settings to create a visual hierarchy.
On Windows 11, Mica will be the most common design element, and it will appear in various applications and the operating system itself. It allows the desktop background behind the window to pass through in a blurry focus. In the preview version, you can notice the Mica material in the file explorer, settings interface, Microsoft Teams and several other places.
Fluent Design’s Mica is dense and semi-transparent, and its transparency effect is visible behind the application window or desktop background. On the other hand, Mica updated the application window, incorporating themes and desktop wallpapers, and drawing the background.
In a new Q&A session, Microsoft explained that the Mica material does not save the desktop wallpaper every frame. On the contrary, “it only blurs the image once” to provide a better performance and experience than that of the effect.
Performance is indeed our top priority. We want to make sure that all these interesting new features (mica and rounded corners) are super fast and will not affect the operating system. For example, compared with acrylic special effects, mica is a special Designed for higher performance. For rounded corners, we optimized our rendering performance, so you should not notice any difference compared to square corners, the company also said.
Some people believe that the design elements of Windows 11, such as the centered start menu and rounded corners, are inspired by macOS. Microsoft said that this statement cannot be established. Good designs are often similar. We learn from each other, but the Fluent Design style has been developed for a long time, and we are evolving with how people use our devices.
Kevin Gallo, Head of Microsoft Developer Platform (Kevin Gallo) said. The design style is always changing, because we just want a new and novel way to use the equipment and combine them… They may seem familiar, but the constant goal is to make the user’s experience is smooth and natural, he added.
The implementation of WinUI controls, Mica and new Fluent Design elements has started from the 21H2 version of Windows 11 (updated in October 2021), but we are still far from its completion.
