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I'm testing a Windows application for usability. While I thought the application looked pretty usable at first, I tried the application using the "Large text" setting in Windows 7 and realised that some text containers were now too small to accommodate for the large text.

While the idea of changing the text size occurred to me by chance, I'm now thinking that there may be a panoply of other Windows settings that I should change and test for.

What are the common Windows 7 settings I need to test to make sure my application is universally usable?

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As well as testing with "Large Text" etc, make sure you test different resolutions as well. If you have the screen resolution data for your users use that, if not just use the global data to find the most common resolutions.

This will ensure that you check that your window isn't too large for the screens your users are likely to have.

Another thing to check is that your application plays nice with themeing. Ideally it should use the current theme, but failing that it should always be legible regardless of the theme selected.

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This is actually about accessibility, not usability in general. Microsoft has tremendous amounts of information about how to develop with accessibility in mind. Here is a good place to start: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/bb735024

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Also: Check how pages look if the user prints them out. Its an easy one to forget to test.

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