MS 365 Profile Badge colour

[paulb203]

TL;DR Summary

Why sometimes red, sometimes blue, etc?

Sorry if 'Profile Badge' is not the correct term.

I have an MS 365 subscription and I've noticed on my Word documents the small circle with my initials in it is sometimes different in colour document to document (it's the circle at the top right of the doc, that, when you hover over it it tells you you're signed in; if you click on it you get a bit more info).

Last night I had four docs with a red circle, one with blue. When I closed the blue and opened it again it was red. Today I have 3 open and they're all green!

I thought it might be something to do with which account your logged in with, as I still have a college account, and I have my personal account. But I never use the college one.

What's the significance, if any, of the varying colours? I did ask online but the answers were, to me, a confused mess.

P.S. I'm not sharing the documents with anyone, and it's only me who is logged in.

 

[jack action]

For the color of the circle next to your name, based on our test, color will change randomly when you closed Office apps and then re-open it. And if you set up a profile photo, it won't change.

It seems that you are referring to the colored circles with initials that appear in the upper right corner of Office apps.

These circles represent the user’s profile picture and display the user’s initials if a profile picture is not set. The color of the circle is randomly generated and may change when you close and reopen Office apps.

If you want to always have the same color, I suggest setting your profile picture as an image of your initials with the background color of your choice.

 

[paulb203]

If you want to always have the same color, I suggest setting your profile picture as an image of your initials with the background color of your choice.

Ah, thanks :)

 

[berkeman]

I wonder which rocket scientist at Microsoft had the idea to make the color random. Maybe they asked a Focus Group...

 

[jedishrfu]

It was part of their user entanglement initiative.

 

[DaveC426913]

It may simply assign colours on a first come, first served basis, changing each time you sign out.

I wonder which rocket scientist at Microsoft had the idea to make the color random.

There is a usability argument to be made for making it random.

I could go into it if you want - and you may or may not agree - but the take-away is that what seems an obvious design choice at first glance is not always the best one.