Microsoft working on a refined UI with Fluent Design for Windows Settings in Windows 10

Microsoft shipped the Windows 10 Fall Creators Update earlier this month, which means the company’s big focus now is on the next release: Redstone 4. With the Windows 10 Redstone 4 release set to arrive early next year, Microsoft engineers have already started working on adding new features to the OS. Redstone 4 is expected to be a much bigger upgrade compared to the Fall Creators Update, and it will also bring some features like Windows Timeline which got cut from the Fall Creators Update release.

With Redstone 4, Microsoft will be bringing its Fluent Design system to more parts of the operating system. The company is working on bringing Fluent Design’s Acrylic to the taskbar and adding some more Fluent Design elements to the Start Menu already. And according to some new screenshots leaked by Microsoft enthusiast Rafael Rivera, Microsoft is also working on a refined user-interface for Windows Settings. The company is testing a slightly tweaked layout for Windows Settings and it actually looks a lot better than the current design in Windows 10.

In addition to the improved layout for the home page in Windows Settings, Redmond is bringing Acrylic to the sidebar of Windows Settings’ actual settings pages as well. The sidebar already includes Fluent Design’s Reveal effect, and the addition of Acrylic will polish things up a bit more, too.

Notably, Microsoft is yet to introduce most of the other elements of Fluent Design in Windows 10, and it isn’t clear if we will start seeing more of Fluent Design in Windows 10 with Redstone 4 apart from the usual Acrylic and Reveal-related improvements. The software giant showed off a lot of really cool Fluent Design concepts earlier in the year, but none of that’s present in the Fall Creators Update.