Microsoft Testing Cortana Notebook Redesign in Windows 10
- Mehedi Hassan
- Dec 05, 2017
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Cortana’s Notebook could soon be getting a new look. Redmond is A/B testing a new design for the personal assistant’s Notebook with a small group of Windows 10 users, although it is yet to officially announce anything regarding the new design. This is actual A/B testing, by the way.
The feature was initially spotted by a user on Reddit (via MSPU), although I was “lucky” enough to have the new design on my Windows 10 PC with the latest Redstone 4 Insider build.
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The new Notebook design for Cortana isn’t too different from the current design. Rather than putting everything on a single page, Microsoft is separating the options into two different sections within the Notebook to make things, well, less confusing. Cortana’s Notebook has always been a confusing mess, combining things like your reminders, music providers, package tracking, accounts, integrations, and more — all on one single page.
By separating things like your to-do lists and reminders into the Organizer section and everything else into the Manage Skills section, it’s actually much easier to find things within Cortana’s Notebook than ever before. Notebook’s Manage Skills section displays the Cortana Skills you’ve enabled, and then all of your other Cortana-related settings. This includes the music providers you have enabled, or other integrations like LinkedIn, Office 365, or Uber are separated into the Connection settings. Other actions are separated into sections like Productivity, Lifestyle, etc.
Cortana’s Notebook redesign may not ever make it to all users, though. Microsoft’s believed to be working on a major revamp for Cortana in Windows 10 to make it work much more like macOS’ Spotlight search feature, and the Notebook feature might get a completely different look next year with the Windows 10 Redstone 4 release. Still, it’s possible Microsoft will this new design out to Windows 10 Fall Creators Update users in the coming months, as well as users on Android and iOS since Microsoft uses the similar web-based UI for Cortana on Android and iOS devices.
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<p>How about Microsoft improving Cortana first?</p>