Diego Baca

Vice President of Design @ Windows @ Microsoft

[Diego Baca @bacadd]

@Daniel_Rubino @brandonleblanc 🎉

[Diego Baca @bacadd]

@zacbowden 💡

[Diego Baca @bacadd]

@CharlesPattson 🗡️🛡️

[Diego Baca @bacadd]

Our commitment to quality goes beyond the pixels. Great design isn’t just about how Windows looks, but also how it feels and performs. Every interaction should look good, feel good, and be fast and responsive. Performance is just as much a part of great design as the visual experience.

[Pavan Davuluri @pavandavuluri]

Today, we’re sharing updates from the team on memory improvements, including work that makes experiences on 8 GB @Windows 11 PCs faster and more responsive.

Windows quality is an ongoing journey. We’ll keep listening, building on what we learn, and sharing our progress 🚀. https://t.co/4CQOSspoaS

[Diego Baca @bacadd]

Thanks for the thoughtful article, Sean! I genuinely love engaging with Windows fans, having been a longtime Windows superfan myself!

One point I strongly agree with is the importance of feedback. I encourage everyone to keep sharing it, just as I shared my feedback with you on the article. I believe everyone, myself included, has room to grow, learn, and do better. To me, the most valuable feedback is the kind that helps us understand each other’s perspectives, rather than simply expressing anger.

And as you rightly pointed out, priorities at a given moment don’t always align with the opportunities ahead. Things evolve, circumstances change, and feedback helps us revisit decisions.

Criticism and disagreement are healthy, and we don’t always have to agree. What matters is that we keep listening, challenging each other, and moving forward.

At the end of the day, we all want Windows to be the best it can be. I appreciate the dialogue!

[Diego Baca @bacadd]

First, let’s get the facts straight. No one said “never.” I explained that this was a deliberate design decision based on what we learned from Windows 10, where we saw a significant volume of accidental taskbar movements.

We continuously evaluate feedback from telemetry, Feedback Hub, social channels, and other sources, weighing it against our design and product priorities. Nothing is beyond reconsideration.

Also, please use accurate screenshots when reporting on this. Showing Windows 10 made to look like Windows 11, alongside Windows 11 Taskbar settings from five years ago, is confusing and frankly sloppy.

For those suggesting an “auto-lock” or lock/unlock setting as a magic solution, it really isn’t that simple. You’re introducing additional friction to solve a relatively infrequent task. Now, every time you want to move the taskbar, you first need to unlock it. And depending on how locking is implemented, you risk interfering with more common interactions, like rearranging icons or moving items in the system tray.

It’s easy to look at individual design decisions in isolation and conclude there’s an obvious solution. But Windows is a complex system used by over a billion people in countless different ways. Every decision introduces tradeoffs, dependencies, and permutations that we need to consider.

That’s the balance we’re constantly trying to achieve. There’s always room for improvement, and we are always listening, learning, and acting on feedback. But please don’t turn an explanation of a design decision into a declaration that something will “NEVER” happen. That’s simply not what I said.

[Diego Baca @bacadd]

@Goeun_6121 @Pirat_Nation You can still move it.

[Diego Baca @bacadd]

I was reacting to the “headline” used as part of the tweet, not the article itself. The title of the article is great! I love it: “This free app makes moving the Windows 11 taskbar so much easier.”

And for people who want to move their taskbar frequently and aren’t worried about accidental drags, this is perfect! I’m 100% supportive of third-party software that extends Windows and gives people more choice.

My point is really about the framing. When phrases like “you still need” are used, regardless of whether they’re in the headline, title, or the body, they do come across as negative to me (just my opinion, and people are free to disagree! I’m not a writer). Same with describing the setting as “buried.” Having the setting accessible with a single right-click is hardly buried. I’d argue it’s exactly where it should be!

If the intention is to highlight the third-party app, why not simply say, “Did you love the drag-and-drop behavior in Windows 10? This third-party app helps you do just that!”

I think there’s room to celebrate both Windows and the third-party developers who extend it. We don’t need to frame one as lacking in order to highlight the value of the other.

And don’t get me wrong, Zac. I love your work, and I’m always happy to talk with anyone about the design decisions we’ve made. I also want to reassure people of a few things:

1. Most of us have used Windows our entire lives. We’ve experienced its evolution firsthand, across many generations of the OS.

2. We read the feedback! Whether it’s on Feedback Hub, social media, forums, or elsewhere, we’re constantly listening to what people are saying.

3. There are design trade-offs that aren’t always obvious from the outside. User research, implementation details, technical constraints, accessibility, consistency, and many other considerations all factor into our decisions. Not everyone has visibility into the full picture, and I’m always happy to share more context.

4. Above all, we love Windows. We care deeply about the product and want to make it the best operating system it can be.

That doesn’t mean every decision we make is perfect or beyond criticism. Far from it! But I hope people know how much thought, care, and effort goes into these decisions, even when the reasoning isn’t immediately apparent.

Appreciate the conversation, Zac!

[Diego Baca @bacadd]

Warp speed Captain (RIP)🚀🪈

[Diego Baca @bacadd]

@codegreek Wow!!! I love this 🤩

[Diego Baca @bacadd]

@Pureinfotech 💡

[Diego Baca @bacadd]

@bekkan08 🙏

[Diego Baca @bacadd]

@loganaiyer Hey 👋!

[Diego Baca @bacadd]

@Pureinfotech 🙌

[Diego Baca @bacadd]

@TimSweeneyEpic 🎉

[Diego Baca @bacadd]

Thank you, Pedro, for the feedback, as always! Keep it coming. We really appreciate it!

One of the things we find so powerful about the new Search experience is the ability to chain actions. Yes, there are shortcuts and other ways to accomplish individual tasks, but what’s exciting is being able to fire off several quick commands through Search. And because the new experience is so fast, it feels incredibly responsive.

I’d love to hear how you’re using the new Search experience and what your top use cases are, especially scenarios you think we should showcase to both everyday and power users!

[Marcus Ash @marcusash]

Actions to get you game ready, right from Windows Search.

[Diego Baca @bacadd]

I did not say this would break the text. What happens when the spinner is left-aligned with the text is that as the strings change, the spinner also moves, shifting the entire layout. We want to keep the whole thing centered and the spinner in a fixed position to minimize UI movement.

[Diego Baca @bacadd]

Photos gallery super fast 👀 🖼️