Retaining older adults with early dementia as Windows customers

On Reddit, one family described printing step-by-step flashcards in huge bold type, laminating them, and hanging them on a ring beside a parent's desk (u/allquixotic, r/dementia). Others taped notes to the monitor. These workarounds showed Windows was losing older adults with early signs of dementia. Our goal: help these users keep using their own computer, independently, for as long as they can.

Across Reddit threads, most care partners recommended moving a family member to an iPad, a GrandPad, or a Chromebook because they were simpler. We saw the same in person: in a dementia-friendly community group, Chromebooks were the common choice. For Windows, this was a pressing retention problem, not an edge case.

Our competitive analysis mapped the market as a spectrum. Purpose-built devices like GrandPad and Komp are simple because they strip the computer away. Voice assistants help, but can't do real work. Tablets and laptops keep everything, even with their accessibility settings (Apple iPad and Chromebook accessibility features), but assume the user is fluent. No one offered a full computer that becomes simple on demand.

Early exploration went toward help: voice agents inside Windows, a chatbot that spanned the whole OS, and a simpler tile-based navigation with fewer options (yes, a little like Windows 8). Then we spent time in a dementia-friendly community, and the way people talked about support changed our thinking. Dementia isn't a phase where someone needs help for a while. It's a lifelong change, and people want to keep working and living a normal life. Some days are better than others, so the same person may welcome help one day and be frustrated by it the next. In one session, someone said they had stopped visiting a friend who no longer recognized them, because they couldn't help. The facilitator's answer: your presence still means a lot. One couple put it plainly. A former engineer living with dementia wanted his life to stay as it was. His wife said she sometimes watches him struggle until he asks for help, because stepping in too soon makes the frustration, and the sadness about what he's lost, worse. That became our design principle: let users try on their own, and support them without taking over.

Discovery combined Reddit threads (r/dementia, r/dementiaresearch), subject-matter experts, a care-partner interview, a community co-design group, and a documentary about a companion robot (Remembering the Future with IRIS).

Forgotten passwords hurt the most, but users already had a workaround (a written note), and a real fix needs deep security work. Starting work, getting to the first app or file for the task at hand, had no workaround, and it happens every session. So I scoped the MVP to search and navigation, written as an OKR: reduce the cognitive effort it takes to find and open things, measured by misclicks and time to decision. The team pushed back: sign-in felt like the first barrier. My answer lived in the numbers. Sign-in happens once a session, a sticky note already solves it, and a computer doesn't strictly need a password. The Start menu opens again and again. The numbers convinced them.

Cognitive Accessibility Mode is a toggle in Settings. It turns the Start menu into a simpler version of itself, with larger targets and previews of recent work. It runs on existing hardware, not only new devices. In testing it cut on-screen options by 30%, and two of the three participants said they'd use it. We also framed cognitive accessibility beyond dementia: the same mode helps people with learning disabilities, or anyone working under stress, like a parent juggling kids. So it scales well past the group we started with.

An OS-level change touches many teams, so the proposal spelled out the people, partner teams, and rollout it would need. Microsoft's PM and engineering judges ranked it #1 for three reasons: deep primary research with experts and care partners, treating care partners as a secondary user group, and realistic resource planning across teams.

Six quarters, from early 2026 to mid 2027, each feature moving through research, build, beta, and release.

Research surfaced many problems, and forgotten passwords hurt the most. I scoped the MVP to the Start menu instead, because people open it many times a session but sign in only once, and wrote it as an OKR measured by misclicks and decision time. Then I laid out the teams and resources the change would take. Microsoft's PM and engineering judges ranked the proposal #1, in part for realistic resource planning across teams.

Convincing the team that passwords weren't the right target took more than one round. As a PM now, I'd open with the numbers: how many people actually complain about passwords, how often sign-in happens per session compared with opening the Start menu. Lead the discussion with data, then make the decision.