The impact of user research on product design case study:

Abstract

This paper describes the impact of user research on the accessibility features of the Windows Vista operating system. Conducting user research for a complex and widely-used product requires assessing a wide-range of users, experiences, and an ecosystem of PC hardware and software. Our user research for Windows XP gave us a greater understanding of the user's selfperception of their abilities. We also uncovered three pivotal usability issues: awareness, discoverability, and learnability. To address these issues for Windows Vista, we iteratively researched the product while focusing on universal design. The impact of this research resulted in design changes to the following major accessibility areas: an enhanced entry-point, a recommendation process that maps user needs to relevant accessibility components, and enhanced features of Windows Speech Recognition.

Clarifying and differentiating discoverability

“…For example, research in this category considers issues in software development [33,35,78,101,118] or the discoverability of applications [54] and menus [111] in public displays. Similarly, the discoverability of existing and new functionality for operating systems [98] and applications [86] is explored.…”