14 DAY TRIAL // The Fluent Design language is evolving, probably slower than users expected it to, but the Windows 10 Spring Creators Update brings some substantial improvements in this regard in key areas of the operating system.
Fluent Design was announced at Build 2017, and while certain parts, like the acrylic effect, made it to the Fall Creators Update launched the same year, the Spring Creators Update appears to be the release that’s finally pushing this makeover one step forward.
First and foremost, the Windows Shell is the one benefitting the most from the evolution of Fluent Design. There are now Reveal effects and acrylic in more essential areas, like the Start menu. You can try for yourself if you’re already running the Spring Creators Update, as the reveal effect is available in both the app list and in tiles.
Microsoft, however, has further tweaked reveal effects to be softer, mostly based on user feedback, but they’re still easily noticeable across the shell.
The reveal effect is also prominent in the Action Center, and so is in the People Hub, where the acrylic transparency blur has become an essential part of the UI redesign as well. The taskbar itself has also received a touch of acrylic and will most likely get the reveal effect very soon as well.
The Settings app is one of the Windows 10 features that are already featuring Fluent Design, and with the release of the Spring Creators Update, everything looks more modern and benefits from both the reveal and the acrylic effects. One particular option that could come in handy, however, is that the Settings app now allows users to disable these effects when entering battery saving mode, as they eat up too much power and turning them off could help get longer battery life on laptops.
Microsoft Edge, the new default browser in Windows 10, comes with a refined acrylic title bar after previously getting this effect in the Fall Creators Update. Everything has been polished and looks more modern, especially in the dark theme. The reveal effect has made it to the browser as well and is available in key parts of the app, including in the navigation bar.
Digital assistant Cortana is another feature that received the Fluent Design treatment, though in this case the makeover is not as obvious as you’d expect it to be. The reveal effect is indeed noticeable when the sidebar is not collapsed, but other than that, acrylic is missing when launching the digital assistant.
The Fluent Design has also made it to the touch keyboard, but only with acrylic, as the reveal effect doesn’t make much sense for now since it’s supposed to be used with touch input and not with a mouse. The emoji panel, however, comes with both of them, most likely as there are lots of people who use emoji in their texts regardless of the input method.
All in all, Fluent Design is evolving, though as I said in the beginning of the article, it appears that it’s happening slower than users expected at first. Acrylic and reveal effects are now available not only in the core Windows 10 apps, but also in the majority of menus across the operating system, and this is part of Microsoft’s push for a more modern UI on all devices.
There was a time when Fluent Design was supposed to be a key part of Windows 10 Mobile a well, but needless to say, this has become less of a priority when the mobile operating system itself entered maintenance mode.
Without a doubt, however, more on this front will be part of the Redstone 5 update in the fall of 2018, especially because the Fluent Design treatment includes much more than just acrylic and reveal effects.
