Microsoft product team just shared the latest update for Unified Interface in the October 2018 release. This is important especially for those who have started embracing Unifed Interface in their organisations. Note: These Unified Interface updates were not highlighted in the October Release Notes and there is no official article/documentation that stating this yet.
Overall, the update is to address the feedback around the usability and adoption of Unified Interface, primarily around the navigation and colour scheme. To keep in mind, this update is going to be automatically applied to the organisations with v.9 onwards, without the “Opt-In” feature (Related to the quite recent announcement from Microsoft about the continuous update of Dynamics 365). It means if your organisation has embraced the Unified Interface, there might be a slight change to the training material (if any) and preparing communications to the end users so that they are aware of this UI/UX change to the Unified Interface.
The changes are as follow:
Before
After
Sitemap changes:
- Site map will be expanded by default, with the option to collapse, to improve user recall and learning.
- Simplified IA: MRU (recent) and favorites (pinned) moved to top level, always visible. No more entity level MRU.
- No more tabbed sitemap. Bottom flyout used to select areas. To reduce icon overload, colorized tiles replaced area icons.
- New color scheme (black on gray) to improve navigation discovery.
Commanding changes:
- Dark text on light background to group commanding with the content area it effects
- New colored icons and hover effect distinguish different commands and highlights interactive regions
Affected viewport width
These changes are aimed at improving user experience for desktop browser users at widths above 480.
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