The inconsistency and monochrome nature is problematic but imho including your icons alongside the text representation wherever practical is good because it educates the user what those icons mean so that when they see the icon without the context of the text representation they will know.
Including the hotkeys in the menu is good for similar reasons. Does it help me find and click the menu item? No. But does it help me use that action next time without going through the menu? Yes. Icons are same.
Imho the best layout for menu-bars was Windows Phone 7. In WP7, a toolbar of action button icons were shown along the bottom of the screen along with a kebab-button. Clicking the kebab-button would just expand out the bottom-bar into a menu showing the icons in the same order as they were in the toolbar along with a text description. Below the toolbar icons would be all other non-toolbar commands.
It made it clear that the toolbar and the menu were the same thing, just the toolbar is an abbreviated form of the menu for the sake of economy of screen real-estate.
Putting icons throughout menus is kind of a cruder version of same. I like that.
Including the hotkeys in the menu is good for similar reasons. Does it help me find and click the menu item? No. But does it help me use that action next time without going through the menu? Yes. Icons are same.
Imho the best layout for menu-bars was Windows Phone 7. In WP7, a toolbar of action button icons were shown along the bottom of the screen along with a kebab-button. Clicking the kebab-button would just expand out the bottom-bar into a menu showing the icons in the same order as they were in the toolbar along with a text description. Below the toolbar icons would be all other non-toolbar commands.
It made it clear that the toolbar and the menu were the same thing, just the toolbar is an abbreviated form of the menu for the sake of economy of screen real-estate.
Putting icons throughout menus is kind of a cruder version of same. I like that.