Office visual refresh: Office + Fluent
Microsoft brought its Fluent Design system from Windows 10 over to its Office apps to simplify them for the billion people that use Office. Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook are all getting a new simplified ribbon which is smaller and easier to use, a visually renovated task pane system, an intelligent search experience on both desktop and web platforms.
The goal for the visual refresh is to bringing in both simplification and coherent cross Office products. The team started with self-scanning and ambitious explorations, then landed on a system visual refresh embodies simplicity and consistency on the main surfaces, but with full respect to fundamental user needs and preference.
Office Silhouette visual refresh
To start the visual refresh, we did not simply apply the Windows Fluent design principle. Instead, we set two goals to better serve our users. One is to increase inclusiveness and accessibility by reducing silhouette complexity. The second goal is to better cohesion the Office products family with visual coherency.
In the Silhouette, we have the suit header for Office suit level information, the Tab header and Command ribbon for per-app commands, the canvas area for content, and task pane for extra functions and plugins.
Outcome for Office visual refresh 2018
New ribbon tab reduces visual distraction, unions the tab and commands, and helps users focus.
New collaboration corner gathers all collab elements into one, with new avatar colors and new coherent button style.
Simplified ribbon introduces a light-weight Office by re-triaging the commands with increased accessibility.
New menus get better visual hierarchy with reordered commands, new session titles, extended divider-line, bigger icons and more space between the lines.
New dialogs reduce user confusion by bringing in visual consistency cross products and align with other controls.
New task pane management will reveal more information about the collaborator and help make better decisions co-authoring.
