Introducing the New Developer Experience

Introducing the New Developer Experience

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The problem areas we targeted are:


Developer Impact


Improved Efficiency through Thoughtful Reduction



  • Command Placements
  • Colorized Chrome
  • Line Work
  • Iconography

Command Placements


Default toolbars in VS 2010

The default toolbars in VS 2010

Default toolbars in VS 11

The default toolbars in VS 11


Colorized Chrome



Strong use of color in VS 2010

Strong use of color in VS 2010

Reduced use of color in VS 11 focuses attention on the content

Reduced use of color in VS 11 focuses attention on the content


The light color theme in VS 11

The light color theme in VS 11

The dark theme in VS 11

The dark theme in VS 11

Line Work












Four examples of a common visual language across multiple products





  • Quick Launch: Searching within commands and configuration options
  • Searching within tool windows
  • Searching within open files

Quick Launch: Searching Within Commands







Quick Launch showing the results of a search for find

Quick Launch showing the results of a search for find

Searching Within Tool Windows







Searching Within Open Files





In Summary




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  • Dear developers: you are not designers. Microsoft has obviously put much study and design behind this (did you read the article? They did many studies) just like all of their new platforms like Windows Phone. So they have a lot of logic and reason to back up these changes.

    I think it looks great and I love the idea of removing distraction and focusing on content.

    I am one for even less distraction - I would love to see even less tabs and icons (similar to Office 15). And why not use the window title bar area like Chrome uses it for tabs? That is completely wasted space :)

    Looking fantastic though.

  • I think the scroll bars are the least used element in the IDE. It would be nice if they were displayed like on the phones with only a few pixels in width. This would keep them out of the way, unless you need them. Then you could simply mouse over them and display a larger scroll bar similar to what we have currently. Also, what would be nice is to have the ability to switch between layouts with hot keys. There are several things I do which use only a few tools but are there all the time because it is too much effort to hide/show/rearange all the time. Just having them hidden from view is not sufficient. I'm constantly pinning and unpinning tabs depending on the development mode i'm currently in (e.g. debugging while not actively running the debugger, code navigation while learning, writing code). This experiance could be much better.

  • The search features are great, but I am not a fan of the rest.

    The inactive tabs have no borders at all and all-caps labels, which is a usability problem.

    Where two inactive tabs are next to each other (something you maybe tried to avoid in the screenshots? :) but it is there in some) it is quite hard to tell where one tab ends and the next begins as a result.

    Also, making the tab labels all-caps really does not help with vertical text, which is difficult enough to read without removing the extra visual cues that mixed-case text has.

    I am not sure why you hate lines and borders quite so much. The result looks like a DOS app from the days before UIs could draw individual pixels. There were too many lines and borders in previous versions of Visual Studio but I think this new UI is seriously over-compensating. Now we have everything floating in a sea of solid gray, some elements difficult to tell apart from each other, and solid background rectangles which just sit next to each other without even a thin/subtle border around them, which personally I find very ugly (but I guess that is subjective).

    You talk about, effectively, making Visual Studio's UI dull so that we can focus on the UIs we are building inside VS, but you seem to forget that Visual Studio itself is a UI that we are using. VS is not just an app for making other apps; some of us spend our entire lives in this program. Most of the time I am looking at code, not at UIs. The VS UI is not distracting me from anything; the VS UI *is* what I am paying attention to.

    If there really is an issue with the VS UI distracting people from the UIs they are building inside it, maybe have the option to make VS change themes while a UI designer is open. Make it gray all the time by default if you want, of course, but please recognise that not everyone wants that all the time.

    (Speaking of which: Something that would be *incredibly useful* is if the IDE's background color, or some other conspicuous element, could be configured to change while the debugger is active. I've lost count of the times I've accidentally closed all my "unwanted" debug tool windows, or been confused about why I can't build over my old EXEs, because I left the IDE in debug mode and forgot about it. I then have to re-open all the debug windows. If the IDE could change colors or something while debugging then it'd make the different modes obvious.)

    ((Speaking of which, it'd be really handy if we could save and load window/tool layouts, so we could close all the clutter when we don't want it, but easily get it back when we do.))

    I was not a fan of the garish gold etc. from VS2010, but making everything gray isn't the answer either. And making the icons monochromatic is quite unhelpful as the color helped identify them.

    Would it be that crazy for Visual Studio to actually respect the system-wide color configuration and visual styles? If I wanted gray windows, I would configure the OS that way. Provide overrides if you want but at least look like a standard app and respect the user's settings by default. What sort of example are you setting for other apps here? If every app looked like this, completely non-standard and dull, it'd put me off using Windows itself.

    People are complaining that the scrollbars are out-of-place; I feel the opposite: The scrollbars are one of the few 'correct' things in the interface and it's everything else that looks out of place, especially when next to the other apps/windows that it will co-exist with on my desktop.

  • Color differentiation in a command/icon heavy app like VS11 is important to quickly locating something.  Now I'm a giant command line/terminal/powershell user with things like vim and I close every single toolbar, but I know MANY MANY people who are going to be searching for the subtle difference in icon shape for hours.

    Shape, location AND COLOR used to be tools for locating commands.  Now it's ONLY shape and location.  Not good.

  • I find the new UI to be very distracting.  All of Visual Studio looks like it's currently disabled.  The difference between a disabled and enabled icon is completely indistinguishable to me.  

    Also when you put the drab gray UI up next to a richly colored XML document it just looks completely out of place.  It's like going into a house with gray walls and black ceilings then turning the corner and seeing a rainbow coffee table in the middle.  

    I also don't understand the rationale for using all cap letters.  All caps are synonymous with shouting to the vast majority of developers.  It's very distracting to see "SOLUTION EXPLORER", "DATA SOURCES", etc ...  Why is Visual Studio yelling at me?  

  • The loss of chrome and icon color is ridiculous. You've just remove a ton of bits used by our ever scanning eyes to identify UI elements. The monochromatic themes (like in Eclipse) make it more difficult for discovery. Please drop the academic nature of you analysis and be more practical. At least provide the option to restore the chrome and icon color rather than assuming that your ideals are best for all of us.

  • in one line 2010 theme is much better than the new one from visibility point of view. new one is very dull and hard to figure out things.

  • A very well layed out article. I love the new search mechanisms. Thanks for that.

    Now for the frank discussion: The new Iconography is Boring Me To Pieces. And all that "grey matter" on my screen makes me fall asleep sitting up.

    "Change" for the sake of "change" really sucks, guys. Please, please, pretty please remove that "need to change" clause out of your employee annual review requirements. It's a major market kill.

  • Really?  Colored vs. monochrome icons is that big of a deal for some of you?  Perhaps I'm different in that regard then, because I value productivity over sex appeal when it comes to my development toolset.  That said, I will reserve judgement until I've used it extensively.  I appreciate the fact that they seem to be taking a measured, scientific approach to usability.  I hope that it translates to improved productivity.

  • I'm always open to new things and I'll definitely give VS 2011 a try but so far I'm not all that thrilled with the asthetic changes that I'm seeing here. I think that in many ways they are mostly a step backwards. I understand the need to improve performance and decrease application load times etc. After all, it's more important that the end product you design looks good and not necessarily the tool you use to create it. But, I still think there's something to be said for having a nice GUI with (dare I say) "shiny colorful icons" than a dull gray one.

    Not all of us are Linux nerds living in our parent's basement who insist on coding everything by hand in a terminal window and only go outside in between episodes of Stargate to pickup more Redbull from 7-11.

    I agree that things like removing the cut/copy/paste icons were a good move (I don't know anyone that ever used them) but stripping out all of the color, nice lines and shading that defined sections in the menus and layout/configuration windows that made previous versions of VS always stand out above other IDEs is not a good move.

    If you look at what MS has been doing with all of their products lately the trend seems to be simplifying. Simplification is a great thing -when it's done correctly. There is a fine line between "simplifying" and "dumbing down". What Microsoft is doing for Metro, Windows Phone and now VS is the latter. The Office ribbon is a great example of simplifying without dumbing down. Instead of hiding everything in submenus, Microsoft realized that users were no longer using 14" monitors running at 640x480 resolution and decided the time was right to start making use of the extra screen real estate. If you are in the ribbon hater camp then you really need to ask yourself why. Is it because you're stuck in your old ways and never gave it a chance? How does it really cramp your style? Do you not like being able to see the affect of things like style changes previewed in real time? Think about it.

    Moving on to a bad example of what MS has done by dumbing something down is with the new Windows logo and Metro. By now everyone has a computer of some form (desktop, laptop, tablet, phone etc.) that has more processing power and better graphics capabilities than at any other time in history. Now while that shouldn't be an open invitation to make over the top logos using every color known to man with wacky chrome effects, 3D objects and drop shadows everywhere it should at least open the door for a little creativity. Less is not always more. Sometimes it's just...less. I personally feel that the new Windows logo and VS design are both simply boring and uninspired. That's just my two (OK maybe 3) cents.

    Anyhow, back to the topic at hand...MS, please don't keep dumbing down your products. It was the baby boomer generation that were afraid of computers, Gen-X and Gen-Y are pretty comfortable with them.

    PS: As far as the new Metro color scheme goes...teal? Really? You guys chose teal?

  • I'll hold judgement until I actually get my hands on VS 11, but so far the only think I can think of: Terrible!

  • "engendering the impression that VS feels lighter and less complex."

    I don't want a tools that gives me the false perception that it's "lighter" or "less complex" when the reality is quite the contrary. Why don't you fix the reality of the over-complexity of the UI rather than waste time with this foolhardy trickery!

  • Looks terrible. I really hope they listen to this feedback and make some serious adjustments.

  • Removing clutter is great but the grey UI is just depressing. I hope the old theme is still available!

  • I am one of those who prefer the new Subpixel rendering in Direct2D/DirectWrite. It pains me because the VS Team itself not using the tec - why sould any third party invest in it. Would love if we were given the choice.

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