The visual inconsistencies that arise from different desktop environments (such as KDE, GNOME, or Xfce) and custom distributions make it hard for third parties to target Linux.

Instead, a secondary aim of the project was to create a standard style that makes applications look appropriate running on operating systems common at that time, such that independent software vendors would find that their application did not look out of place on Windows XP, Mac OS X, KDE, GNOME, or Xfce.

Apart from the visual guidelines, the project aimed to provide a set of common metaphors for the icons.

Many free software projects, such as GIMP, Scribus, and GNOME, have started to follow the Tango style guidelines for their icons.

Examples highlighted by the Tango Showroom include VMware Workstation 6 and Medsphere OpenVista CIS.