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Designers Denounce macOS Tahoe’s Icon-Filled Menus for Clutter and Inconsistency

Critics say the approach contradicts Apple’s own 1992 interface guidance.

Overview

  • New analyses by UI designers Niki and Nikita Prokopov, amplified on January 6 by tech outlets, fault Tahoe for adding icons to nearly every menu item.
  • The critiques argue that universal icon placement undercuts visual scanning, noting that if every command has an icon, none stands out to guide the eye.
  • Reviewers document inconsistent symbolism across apps, with different icons used for the same action and identical icons reused for unrelated functions.
  • Legibility concerns center on tiny roughly 12×12 pixel glyphs rendered as vector symbols, which critics say blur and lose meaningful detail at normal sizes.
  • Reactions vary as shortcut-heavy users report little disruption, and as of the latest coverage there is no reported response or fix from Apple.