Digital Equipment Corporation's TeamLinks software supports heterogeneous intranets within an organization. The product was originally developed for Windows PC platforms and then ported to the Macintosh platform. Instead of simply porting the Windows interface, the development team engaged in an informal process of customer interviews and iterative prototyping. Through this process, many of the initial assumptions about the product were quickly discarded. For example, users of the Windows version access the TeamLinks application through a special-purpose control window, but the Macintosh version leverages native Macintosh-style document views and navigation. Macintosh users access the application's shared data through the Chooser, using the same techniques they apply to other shared data. Afterward, the developers reported that if they had not taken the time to consider what their Macintosh users would want, they would have wasted the first half of their redevelopment effort (seeWixon, et al.1996).