Skip to content
Loading page

Started by Hannah Kim (@hannahk_ux) ·

the Start button exists because people didn't know where to start

From what I read, new users in testing would sit at Windows 3.1's Program Manager not knowing what to do. The 95 team went through round after round of usability tests and ended up with a button that literally says Start, plus a taskbar showing everything that's open.

6 sources · 24 min down the hole

How I got here

Started with
“windows 95 start button usability testing”
Ended at
Windows 3.1

The Trail

  1. “windows 95 start button usability testing” (google.com)
  2. Windows 95 (en.wikipedia.org)
  3. Start menu (en.wikipedia.org)
  4. Taskbar (en.wikipedia.org)

    people kept losing windows they'd minimized or covered up

  5. “windows 95 user interface a case study in usability engineering” (google.com)
  6. Windows 3.1 (en.wikipedia.org)

Keep going