Snap Layouts
Reimagining one of Windows users’ favorite feature, window snapping.
Windows Vice President of Product Management, Carmen Zlateff, introducing the snap layouts feature as part of the Windows 11 launch.
Role
Lead UX / UI Designer
Goal
Increase overall customer satisfaction with improved productivity and multitasking experiences for Windows 11.
Context
Introduced in Windows 7, the snap feature has one of the highest user satisfaction ratings of all Windows features. Although customers that use snap have higher satisfaction ratings, those who don’t use it often don’t know it exists. That is because snapping is almost impossible to stumble upon, as users must know the keyboard shortcut or know to drag the window off the side of the screen.
Process
To make snapping easier to discover, I looked at new entry points to the experience. The controls on the top right of every window is where a user would look to close, minimize, and maximize that window. Integrating a snapping experience into the title bar window controls would be a predictable and easily accessible location.
Example UI explorations
Introducing visual representations of snap layouts helps users comprehend the experience and enables more layout options.
Designing for a billion users
A challenge often faced when designing for Windows is the thousands of device variations and specs that Windows OS can be run on. The snap layouts adapt to device size and orientation.
With over a billion users, we have to guarantee an accessible experience for everyone. The UI adapts to a user’s theme, including high contrast mode for low visibility users. The design is also screen reader and keyboard accessible for users who are unable or prefer not to use a mouse.
