Early research strategies in context: adobe photoshop lightroom

In January of 2006, Adobe Systems introduced the public beta of Lightroom, a digital imaging solution designed specifically for professional photographers and serious amateurs [1]. The appeal of Lightroom is that it offers a modular, task-based environment that flexibly supports a complete photography workflow. This paper describes two foundation-setting research strategies pursued during the early concept and definition phases of Lightroom. It discusses why certain research strategies were undertaken by the placing the decisions to pursue these strategies within a broader context, including the stage of Lightroom's development, the evolving assumptions of the Lightroom team, product positioning issues, time and resource constraints, and stakeholder engagement. To emphasize the context in which specific research approaches were crafted rather than simply executed, the term research strategies is used in favor of research methods.