Just by looking at the images in the article, I do agree with those findings.
(I do compile with VS, but edit my files in SublimeText)
That's great, except the test is not taking into account my personal preference. I don't use the icons very much to do things - I mostly use keyboard shortcuts. Now, I'm going to be stuck looking at that garbage all day.
Furthermore...76 participants? That doesn't prove anything.
If you know all the relevant keyboard shorcuts you can just hide the toolbars :)
I like the toolbars though. I guess what I like and what I want didn't test well though...with that enormous sample size.
Neither does your singular data point.
How about 200+ comments on the actual article mirroring my exact sentiment?
Because the internet is made of whiners?
And also people who somehow know that a UI without colors (or some other moronic, one-size-fits-all idea) is a good thing for every other user on Earth, for ever and ever, Amen.
In VS 11 we have transitioned to glyph style iconography throughout the product. While we understand that opinions on this new style of iconography may vary, an icon recognition study conducted with 76 participants, 40 existing and 36 new VS users, showed no negative effect in icon recognition rates for either group due to the glyph style transition. In the case of the new VS users they were able to successfully identify the new VS 11 icons faster than the VS 2010 icons (i.e., given a command, users were faster at pointing to the icon representing that command). In this and subsequent studies more developers have expressed a preference for the glyph style icons over the former style, especially after having spent time getting used to the new glyph style icons.