Leaked concepts surface for Windows 10’s Project Neon design refresh

While Insiders are still receiving updates for the Windows 10 Creators Update expected in April, Microsoft watchers continue to excite enthusiasts with leaks of “Project NEON“. MSPU reports that they’ve gotten an exclusive look at the polished user interface and toyed with some of the features that we can expect to see later this year.

The changes aren’t expected to be a major overhaul, but instead using apps will feel more smooth and look better. The “Acrylic” component will blur the background, sidebar, or navigation of the app says the report. It even works with the Connected Animations and Conscious UI that makes using apps smooth such as mousing or scrolling over an area to reveal information.

MSPU likens the focus of Project Neon to “Aero” in Windows 7, especially with a new component called “acrylic”:

Project NEON will heavily focus on animations, simplicity, and consistency – essentially bringing back Windows 7’s Aero Glass and mixing it up with animations like the ones from the Windows Phone 8/7 era.

Microsoft is introducing a new component called “Acrylic” to the Windows 10 design, which is essentially blur in the background, sidebar or the navigation of the app. These are known as “Side-Nav Acrylic”, “Background Acrylic” and “In-App Acrylic” respectively – in the screenshot below we get to see the Side-Nav Acrylic:

Here is a GIF image that shows the Acrylic blurring the background of a Connected Animation when the user scrolls down in Groove Music, design elements already included in the latest Windows 10 Insider builds.

Another app that is known to have elements of Project NEON is Paint 3D. Insiders that have been checking out the Creators Update noticed that the revamped app was different in design. Turns out, the changes are a glance at what is to come in the future.

Perhaps most interesting is that Project NEON interactions are being developed towards 3D and HoloLens users as well. Instead of using the mouse to interact with the components, eye movement and clickers will determine when they come into play.

The project is still in development, so many more changes could be made before we see it rolled out. In fact, even the taskbar has some slight modifications from the screenshots provided. It’s hard to know what exactly the end-game will be, but it’s exciting to see some change coming to Windows 10.

Project NEON expected later this year in the Redstone 3 release, but the article mentions that we’ll likely see some of these features come to app developers in the Windows 10 Creators Update this spring.