What makes the Fluent Design System so unique?

[GreaseMonkey255]

In this thread, I'd like us to ponder what makes the Fluent Design System special. Is it the design of the system itself, or the outlying circumstances surrounding it? Or both?

1. I think that the Fluent Design System is the greatest UI since Windows Aero. Why is that? I'm sure if Windows jumped straight from Aero to the Fluent Design system everyone would say, "What's with those flat panels and and hamburger menus?" It's because we went from Aero to Metro to Metro 10 that we see an improvement in the overall design. Metro was colorful, but flat. Metro 10 is flat but mostly dark with a touch of color. The continuous updates to Windows 10 have made Metro 10 more colorful, but it still has no native transparency.

2. The overall design of the Fluent Design System is a new concept. Other designs have been similar, but Microsoft hatched a new egg with the Fluent Design System. Material Design by Google has a similar design, but it doesn't have the light and depth design portions that the Fluent Design System has. In fact, stock Android has a dark theme applied to its notification center and status bar. If you were to compare the acrylic design of the Fluent Design System with the design of another OS, iOS would be the closest match. I guess that the great part about the Fluent Design System is, just like the XPS 15, the sum of all of its components. That's what makes its design unique.

So, what do you think makes the Fluent Design System unique?

 

[Zachary Boddy]

I believe that what makes Fluent Design unique is not necessarily what components Microsoft has used to create it, such as Acrylic, depth-of-field, parallax effects and more, but rather the sum of all these parts and how they can adjust to fit any screen, or method of input. Yes, Acrylic is beautiful, and Fluent Design is already looking great on Windows 10, even in the stages of bare infancy, but it's more than that.
The fact that, one day, Fluent Design will be able to seamlessly morph form my PC to my tablet to my HoloLens to my phone and my Xbox and all the way back is what makes it unique. Here, we have something that has never been accomplished. An operating system that runs everywhere, with a UI and UX design that makes it easily accessible across all form factors. And it looks awesome.

Android has Material Design. and it is fantastic at letting users know where things are, and how things interact. It's not quite as good at navigational cues as Metro was, but as of now it's still better than MDL2. It's also consistent. iOS may have started the whole "real world in technology form" UI design, but when they abandoned that Google took up the mantle and ran with it.

iOS is super consistent and easy to use, but it's boring and lacks the user customizability and warmth that other operating systems has. They pioneered good UI design, but recently their efforts have fallen short of "beautiful."

Microsoft is trying to find the best of both worlds. An OS that can move anywhere and remain easy to use and navigate while being pleasant to the eyes.