Microsoft: durable design for Xbox
researcher and author, at Invivia, 2015
A research proposal on what makes software design durable, following a workshop with Microsoft's Windows and Devices Group design organisation.
A workshop at Redmond in December 2015 with the design organization of Microsoft’s Windows and Devices Group addressed interface durability: why hardware designs can endure for decades while software interfaces are replaced every few years. The concrete case was Xbox, which lacked a durable user interface identity at the time.
The resulting proposal set out an eighteen-month program covering research and execution alongside communications, producing practical toolkits and guidelines for designers and engineers.
It drew on Microsoft’s inclusive design program, then led by Kat Holmes. It incorporated universal design, which begins with the ten percent of users rather than the ninety percent addressed by standard accessibility, as well as the 1982 WHO framework defining disability as a property of a situation rather than an individual.