NeoWin editor Usama Jawad scored the experience of Windows 11 in 2021 - 6.5/10; and commented that Microsoft's idea of simplifying the UI is fine, but its immature way of advancing does not really make sense bring a good user experience.
At that time, Jawad's views were supported by many users. But today, Jawad once again tweeted that after the past 6 months, the problem he raised has not been improved. "As we've seen with recent Insider builds, Microsoft appears to be intentionally adding new features, ignoring all the UI inconsistencies and lack of basic functionality in existing builds."
Jawad cites the experience of his colleague Taras Buria . Taras tweeted , "Windows is a joke . Look at all these stock apps (probably more, don't know, I uninstalled them after initial setup), the UI and UX choices are complete random."
All the apps are native apps developed by Microsoft itself, but as you can see, the UI and UX designs are inconsistent. "It's as if the OS is designed with no leadership at all to oversee decisions. Even the icons are styled differently, some with thicker borders and some more minimalistic. It's as if each development team is working in its own silo , Just focus on what they think will make their apps look good, regardless of the overall aesthetics of Windows 11."
And this problem is not limited to icons. Jawad pointed out that there are still legacy menus older than Windows 10 scattered throughout the operating system, as well as some menu options that are basically pulled and carried over directly from previous Windows versions with no regard for the overall user experience at all. All of this suggests that Windows 11 's apparent lack of design standardization isn't a good sign for an operating system used by millions.
And there is also the problem of lack of basic functionality. For example, Microsoft still refuses to let users move the Windows 11 taskbar, but they have added an action to rotate the settings icon in Notepad, as well as some other subtle changes. Jawad believes that Microsoft's task prioritization is inexplicable, and what should be changed is not changed, but it is drastic in some irrelevant aspects. " I have no problem with adding these extras, but my main request to Microsoft is: please get the basics right first. "
Microsoft's Feedback Hub has some feedback from users, some of which have high approval ratings. Ideally, Microsoft should track these comments with a higher priority in development. But the truth is that many of those requests have been on hold for months. They even got a hint recently that Microsoft isn't actually paying attention to this user feedback, Jawad said.
Jawad concluded that he fully understands that Windows 11 is being developed by multiple teams, with their own areas of focus; so it's not fair to expect things to change all at once, and that's not what he wants.
However, there is a clear lack of centralized oversight, which should be responsible for managing priorities, guiding the development of missing features, and standardizing UI design. This adds to the woeful problem that the actually highly requested feedback project has been open for months while Microsoft has been adding features that hardly anyone has requested.
The problem with the existing approach is that each team will continue to develop in isolation in their own area of focus, and while this may result in a bunch of features being added, it may not be what people are really asking for; and due to UX inconsistencies , it might give the impression that Windows 11 is a collection of disparate components rather than a cohesive operating system.
I know (or at least I hope) that things will improve over time, but given the extremely slow progress in UI consistency and basic functionality development over the past six months, plus a new feature update coming soon , I think now is a good time to call on Microsoft to re-prioritize development activities and have a central oversight process on the pipeline.