Redmond, We Have a Consistency Problem (Premium)

Now that most of the major issues with Windows 10 have been resolved, we can begin focusing on some less serious problems, like user interface inconsistency.

Let’s look at icons as an obvious example.

Here is my Windows 10 taskbar. As you can see, I pin a variety of applications to the taskbar, while that last icon, for Settings, is currently running but not pinned.

Of the 14 application icons you can see, only three---for Photoshop Elements (position 9), Photopea (10, a web app I’m currently testing), and Twitter (13) are not included in some way with Windows 10. So, there are 11 icons for applications there that ship with Windows 10.

By my count, there, are 8 distinct icon styles there between those 11 app icons. 8.

They are:

Windows 10-style, flat white (or black in Dark color mode). These are Mail (3), Calendar (4), and Settings (14).

Windows 10-style, flat white (or black in Dark color mode) with a color splash. Only one deviates from the flat colorless norm: Microsoft Store, which inexplicably has a splash of colors in its logo.

Rich, colorful gradient. File Explorer is unique because it has a rich, colorful gradient for some reason, unlike every other application icon in Windows 10.

Flat blue. The Microsoft Edge icon is a bit like the flat white/black icons in Windows 10, except that it is blue for some reason and is always blue; it doesn’t change if you switch between the Light and Dark color modes.

New Office style. The new Office app icons aren’t just inconsistent within Office, they’re inconsistent within Windows 10, as no other icons look like these do. But yes, only some Office apps are getting the new treatment. For some reason. (This is true of Office document file icons too, but let’s stay on topic here.)

Windows Vista-style. The Notepad icon still has a 2005-era Aero-glass style design that sits at an angle as if looking off to your left.

Paint. This icon is a higher-DPI version of the classic Paint icon but it has remained stylistically unchanged for decades.

Skype. Skype uses a flat but contoured design that utilizes Skype’s unique blue color and doesn’t change between Light and Dark color modes.

And that’s just what happens to be on my taskbar. Looking through the Start menu and elsewhere in Windows, you’ll find plenty of other icon styles. The more you look, the more terrible it gets.

Microsoft often talks up how it is rolling out something called the Fluent Design Language in Windows (and in other products) over time, and that it will evolve this design language based on feedback and experience. The scattershot way in which it has done this is only partially responsible for the icon style inconsistencies shown here. But this kind of thinking is very much the general problem. And instead of picking and choosing what to update in each release, I think a platform-wide refresh---with an eye towards visual iconographic consistency---is in order.

And wh...