All of this creates a Start menu that uses up an enormous portion of screen real estate but doesn’t really offer you all that much. In many ways, the Start menu on Windows 11 feels like it was designed to be used on a touch device, since it is generally easier to mistap with your finger than to misclick with your mouse. In those situations, big icons with large margins between them make sense.

The trouble is that most Windows 11 devices don’t have touch screens, and even among those that do (tablets or some laptops), only a minority of users are going to be using the touchscreen as their primary interface. The current design of the Windows 11 Start menu just doesn’t make sense for the vast majority of people, especially not when you compare it to Windows 10, which was much more customizable and useful.

Before any feature goes live, it first moves through a series of experimental versions of Windows via the Windows Insider Program, which gives people a chance to test out new features and provide feedback. The beta build from February 21st contains a significant redesign of the “All” list in the Windows 11 Start menu. The big change is that you can now choose between sorting alphabetically and by category.

The alphabetical sorting option is very similar to the Start menu’s current All list, but the programs can spread out horizontally, which is a much better use of space. Unfortunately, there is no concrete timeline of when these features will be available to everyone, or even if they’ll be released. Sometimes features that show up in Beta Channel (part of Microsoft’s Windows Insider Program) never make it to the “real” version of Windows at all.

However, it seems very likely that something like these options will make it to the mainline version of Windows 11. On the whole, Microsoft has been pretty good about responding to criticism and feedback about the user interface changes in Windows 11, and the fact that they’re actively exploring options is a promising sign.