A personal essay about imagining Black futures as a way of escaping a terrifying present and creating a more just society. — By Tracy Jones Editor’s Note: “Raised by an Afrofuturist” is the first in a series of personal essays that brings to life the rich perspectives of the designers, storytellers, UX engineers, researchers, and operational leaders of Microsoft Design. …

Collaborating with Pantone to bring more color to work and life — Collaborating with Pantone to bring more color to work and life By Microsoft Design From custom-designed hamster homes to the sourdough bread baking craze, one silver lining of the pandemic was a return to the creative impulses that adulthood so often stymies. Even we creative professionals fall prey to busy…

A cross-discipline collaboration to ethically leverage AI and improve in-person shopping experiences — A cross-discipline collaboration to ethically leverage AI and improve in-person shopping experiences By Juliette Weiss, Rick Barraza, and Jenny Williams Think of your last satisfying in-person shopping experience (and if you have to reach back pre-pandemic, that’s ok!). Maybe you were browsing your favorite bookstore, pouring over the staff picks…

How the Fluent Design System helps us evolve and grow better together — How the Fluent Design System helps us evolve and grow better together By Jennifer Bost and Anna Gregory Last year, a group of us from across Microsoft got together to tackle a tricky challenge. We needed to evolve our design principles — the concepts that articulate our shared vision and…

Microsoft’s new emojis — By Claire Anderson, Art Director & Emojiologist The world has changed quite a bit since ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ became ‍🤷‍♀️. Mobile devices proliferated, the gig economy burgeoned, and remote work began to rise. Then the pandemic hit and beyond our heroic essential workers, almost everyone became a remote worker. The emoji has…

How we built a single product for over a billion people — By Christina Koehn and Diego Baca Windows has been with many of us as far back as we can remember. It has a rich 35-year history, full of new experiences that showed us how computing can enrich our lives: writing your first essay in Microsoft Word, drawing your first digital…

How the Microsoft Mixed Reality Studios explored more immersive interactions — By Oscar Salandin “Can I flick it?” We were often asked questions like this when users were testing our immersive interaction prototypes on HoloLens 2. Hologram interactions based on simulation and emergence, rather than individual features, can lead to interesting test scenarios. The honest answer was, “I don’t know, but…

We’ve commissioned five new custom fonts–help us choose which one should be the next default font for Microsoft 365! — By Si Daniels Default fonts are perhaps most notable in the absence of the impression they make. We seldom give them much thought, and therein lies their greatest gift. …

How your web searches empower everyday giving — By Albert Shum with Danielle McClune Giving is a universal behavior that spans cultures around the world. Altruistic acts — from supporting disaster relief to voting rights efforts to housing development and cultural preservation — not only benefit the recipients, but also make a positive impact psychologically on those who…