Skype Gets the Fluent Design Treatment in Windows 10
While Microsoft has been promising to bring the modern Skype design to Windows 10 for a while, the company has been quite slow at delivering on its promise. The modern Skype for desktops isn’t installable in Windows 10, with Microsoft basically forcing users to use the Windows 10 UWP app instead. The company is, however, bringing a touch of Fluent Design to the Skype app in Windows 10 this week.
Microsoft is testing a new update for the Skype app with Windows Insiders which brings Fluent Design’s Acrylic effect (blur) to the app’s sidebar. For dark theme users, you will also see the Reveal Highlight effect on the Skype app. While these new additions were much-needed, they actually don’t look very good on the app.
Fluent Design on the majority of Microsoft apps look pretty great, but the Acrylic on the Skype app just doesn’t look aesthetically pleasing. More importantly, though, the Skype app in Windows 10 still looks way different from the modern Skype design on other platforms. Microsoft has been committed to providing a consistent Skype experience across devices with the modern Skype, and the company has succeeded for the most part. But in Windows 10, the Skype experience is extremely inconsistent and feels almost like the work of an entirely different design team.
In fact, it has come to a point where Skype for older versions of Windows is actually more powerful and prettier than Skype for Windows 10. Still, there’s a possibility Microsoft will end up bringing the modern Skype experience to Windows 10 in the future — but right now, we are only getting Fluent Design.
Tagged with Skype, Windows 10, Windows Insiders