Operating Systems and web design took a turn for the better around the beginning of this century, Apple introduced OSX 10, Microsoft brought out Windows XP and CSS began to be increasingly adopted.
It would be fair to say that Google and Apple have provided the most unique design directions over the last 10 years, Google with it’s minimalist user interfaces and Apple with it’s glossy Aqua theme. While I think Vista stands on it’s own design-wise there are definite Apple inspired decisions made.
Over the last few months however I’ve been noticing the new direction Microsoft design has been going in and I’m really liking it a lot. The first indication was the Microsoft.com redesign which I noticed went to a much more minimal design than previously and was followed by redeisgns across most of the Microsoft websites. Next the Internet Explorer 8 beta 2 came out and notably has lost the ‘gloss’ of IE7. The Windows Live wave 3 followed and introduced a similar but more toned-down interface with no icons and was predominantly white, finally the online services began to be updated and introduced a great new theme which can be seen here. The Microsoft Software + Services strategy website also got a nice minimal theme.
I personally love this direction, the design is minimal, perhaps inspired by Google and yet much more attractive while avoiding the glossy, ‘web 2.0’ look which has so dominated design for the last decade and was present in the previous wave 2.0 incarnation of Windows Live.
What do you think about this change in design?
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