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Microsoft.com New Design Preview

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Re: Microsoft.com New Design Preview

#52

Post by simonrobb »

brudgers wrote: post #38
derpmeister wrote: post #10

That's the squarest site ever! I take it IE still doesn't support rounded corners?

What is the advantage of rounded corners?

Rounded corners are known to draw attention inward while angular edges "point" outward, which could make rounded corners a better choice for content containers from the usability perspective. An interesting discussion on the topic here: http://ux.stackexchange.com/questions/11150/how-do-rounded-c...

OTOH, I love the feel of Metro and wouldn't change to rounded corners for the world.

Re: Microsoft.com New Design Preview

#53

Post by simonrobb »

josephcooney wrote: post #25
abruzzi wrote: post #22

I really don't like the use of big photos like here, the new airbnb, and Bing. They are busy, space wasting and bandwidth hogs. And to my eyes they don't add anything.

They only waste space when you've got space to waste. I really like the way the layout changes as the screen size changes and the images become more cropped.

Yeah the responsive design is really well executed. But seriously, I can literally only see the nav and four images when I load this page on my desktop. Shocking usability. Every time I see a new MS offering I feel more and more that they are investing in good-looking design rather than usable design.

Re: Microsoft.com New Design Preview

#55

Post by makecheck »

zackham wrote: post #11

Really nice support of different browser sizes. Resize your browser from wide to really narrow to check it out.

I have to admit they did a smart job of figuring out what makes sense at each screen size (different layout and controls, etc.).

Now I want their web team to share knowledge with the Metro team. :)

Re: Microsoft.com New Design Preview

#56

Post by bhrgunatha »

yaix wrote: post #34

Good to see that the use the "menu with down-arrows" correctly, that is "on click", rather than flickery on hover.

This is one of the first things I noticed.

The problem is not just that it is flickery, it's actually often unusable.

There are so many sites that use on-hover to trigger a menu (often with sub-menus), so that if you misplace your pointer even slightly, the top-level menu option you selected disappears.

I've lost count of the number of times I have to play the game of selecting from the top level menu, back down to the item I actually want.

Re: Microsoft.com New Design Preview

#57

Post by mgkimsal »

aik wrote: post #26
toddmorey wrote: post #20

I don't know, I just think you can take sparse so far it becomes soulless. Simple, clean design can still be emotive. This isn't. The stock art humans make this feel more like a Big Oil annual report. (And that Products menu is a little painful!) All that said, this is leaps and bounds beyond their current homepage.

Sorry I'm not understanding but really wanting to. What do you mean "more emotive"? What exactly could be done to this page to make it more "emotive"? What takes away from its "emotiveness"? About the products page -- overall I think it looks pretty clean, but I mostly have a problem with the "More Products" category where they bunch together a big list of random products.

"What exactly could be done to this page to make it more "emotive"? "

Comic Sans seems to do the trick for many people.

Re: Microsoft.com New Design Preview

#58

Post by sliverstorm »

nakedgremlin wrote: post #14

That is an impressive adaptive site design update. A couple of things I love about this is (1) the elegance of the menu toggle to top in the small (mobile-size) view and (2) the slideshow control appearance on small view and adaptation to breadcrumb implementation on large view. Quite elegant and appropriate for each environment. Of course, it is sad that the experience is rarely consistent when you start digging dee…

it is sad that the experience is rarely consistent...

It's a preview.

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