For some reason Microsoft keeps doing dark themes like this. Same in Windows 10. Pitch black against text. Do they even let designers do this job or is it just devs checking in code? A designer should know about these things by heart.
Yeah I truly don't understand who (if anyone) is leading design at Microsoft. There's so many good examples of how to do things right in UI these days and they somehow keep making the wrong choices.
Other examples include their insistence on pixel-thin icons which are barely legible when reduced [1], flat buttons that are just colored boxes devoid of even basic button affordances, hard edges everywhere, and nearly 100% saturated colors that are an assault on the eyes.
They've never been very good at UI, but where they are these days is just bad. Their new Fluent design language [2] on mobile looks like an improvement from Metro, they're actually seeing what others are doing and copying it decently enough, but its not really out there much in their products.
