14 DAY TRIAL // New icons in Windows 10 is quite huge news, mostly because such an update doesn’t happen that often, obviously despite the user community calling for more frequent refreshes.
After nearly five years since its launch, Windows 10 is now getting the first major icon update, as Microsoft has started pushing a new design to users enrolled in the Windows Insider program.
The new icons are mostly aimed at the apps that come pre-loaded with Windows 10 and align with Microsoft’s Fluent Design language, which itself represents a massive evolution from the traditional Windows experience.
To get these updated icons, all you need to do is install the latest versions of the Windows 10 apps from the Microsoft Store.
Rollout to production devices to begin shortly
Microsoft says bringing new icons to Windows 10 is a “multi-year effort.”
This design choreography becomes more critical as technology advances. That’s why we’ve embarked on a multi-year effort across Microsoft’s design teams to redesign our icons: a system within a system,” Christina Koehn, Design Leader, Windows and Devices at Microsoft, explains.
“Flat, monochrome icons look great in context of colorful tiles, but as more icon styles enter the ecosystem, this approach needs to evolve. When icons in the taskbar and Start menu are different styles, it creates more cognitive load to scan and find applications. We needed to incorporate more visual cues into the icon design language using our modernized Fluent Design Language.”
Users running the stable version of Windows 10 will receive the new icons shortly, as Microsoft first wants to do some last-minute testing as part of the Windows Insider program. Once this test is ready, the new icons should be available through app updates from the Microsoft Store, as mentioned above.