Talk about marketing website construction from Apple and Microsoft Web site usability

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Dear Entrepreneurs and Entrepreneurs:

Hello, I am marketing treason will, here and you share Pi Pi Marketing Special report Nineth, share the theme is from Apple and Microsoft two companies web site usability talk about marketing web site planning production and design construction.

Today, we will compare Apple and Microsoft, the world's two world-class corporate websites. There is no doubt that these two giants are proud of the discontinuity of their personal and corporate products and are constantly leading the development of software and hardware in the IT industry.

But what about their company web site alone? How to compare them, more importantly, which is better, which one is more useful? Today, marketing treason will be from the point of view of ease of use, carefully contrasting apple and Microsoft's corporate website, in order to be able to your marketing-oriented web site planning production and design construction have some inspiration and inspiration.

Before we start to compare, we will give a brief introduction about the difference of the market profit area entered by the two companies ' websites.

Microsoft is more business-to-business than commercial, primarily by selling licenses to PC devices to sell Windows-series operating systems and selling office office software to companies. This is not to say that Microsoft does not sell products to individual consumers, and this is just a Microsoft shopping cart in one of the product line, can be said to win network marketing operating system product slide (for more information please refer to the WIN Network marketing operating system DNA version of the "Win Pin" chapter II "How to build business empire Shopping cart System" "Marketing killer and nuclear weapons" in one of the products, such as Xbox game consoles, and of course home users can also buy Windows operating system and Office Office software. This means that Microsoft's potential customer base basically includes each of us, from home computer users to developers and corporate users, and that's why the planning and design of Microsoft's Web site is designed to try to serve everyone.

And what about Apple? From a commercial form, the main source of profit is the sale of hardware, such as ipod music players and Mac computers and the iphone. This makes Apple's website much clearer-marketing, selling, and servicing its products.

Apple doesn't have to worry about selling licensed products to manufacturers because they are the only ones, so the main purpose of Apple's Web site is to advertise and promote multiple product lines for its shopping cart, which is done through Apple's online store.

Need to specifically note that, because PI marketing focus on network marketing, so, here also can not simply from the site usability point of view to compare Apple and Microsoft's website, but should be integrated into the network marketing elements and vision, that is, marketing treason will be said marketing-oriented web site. Only in this way, this article on your company's Web site planning production and design has practical reference significance.

#1: Home page of marketing website

The homepage of the marketing type website is the most important page of the whole website, because it is the first page of the marketing type website, in many marketing type website's planning production and the design construction, your only opportunity is lets the website visitor to your website homepage Impress deeply can hold live them to continue to browse. At the same time, you have only a few seconds to convince them that your site is of great value to keep them in use. If not, the visitor chooses to leave immediately.

Apple's web site since the online operation, has maintained the marketing of the home page consistency. Apple has used the homepage as some form of advertising board to display their latest product information, and on the home page of Apple's website, there are usually 3 ads for 3 other products or Apple's most important news information.

If you are not interested in these 4 recommendations, Apple also uses the navigation menu at the top of the home page to showcase their core products: Mac, ipod, and iphone, as well as online stores, technical support and other important links, and finally a search box.

On the homepage of Apple's website very interesting is the top of the main advertising is very large, almost occupy the entire home page. If this does not capture your attention, the ad will be of little value. In fact, if you've ever seen the Pi Marketing report "5 marketing ways Apple makes money machines to create a business empire," you know that Apple is very good at marketing and they can always grab your attention, so they don't have to worry about the huge ad being meaningless.

Another noteworthy place is that there is not much content on the home page of Apple's website. Without sidebar, alerts, or other navigation items, there are few content items on the home page that focus on your attention and also allow you to decide where the mouse clicks.

Microsoft's approach to the homepage of the site is another way. First, they recommend similar-style ads at the top of the site, as well as capturing your attention. Only 1 of the 4 recommended ads are displayed, and the remaining ads are automatically displayed sequentially. Obviously, this also focuses on your attention, but may lose some of the results of other ads that are displayed later. Above the top navigation menu is a search box.

Below the main ads are some navigation of content that you may be interested in. As mentioned earlier, Microsoft's market profit area includes both Business-to-business and Business-to-consumer parts. In the next part, that is, the space at the bottom of the home page, the biggest problem is any place that attracts attention, because there is too much information in the cramped space, and it seems to be boring without being angry.

Another problem is the font. Overall, Microsoft's homepage has a small font, and there is not enough distinction between the contents of the title. Personally, there's really no attraction for me to keep browsing.

#2: Design flow of marketing website

Said design flow, may not be professional. Master Don't shoot bricks. That's how I define the concept of streaming: a site structure and layout that makes it easier for visitors to find the content he's focused on. In other words, when I browsed the site, did the design of the site lead me to the content I focused on, instead of looking for it on the site or clicking on the navigation bar to find what I needed? This is the itunes page for Apple's website:

I believe Apple has spent a great effort on the structure and layout of these pages. When you look at this page, your eyes may first see the big picture on the right, then the headline on the left. After reading these, you may look at the short introductory text. After that, is a "free download" deal proposition. If you are not interested in this deal proposition, there are 2 recommended items below.

One detail to note here is that while the two recommended projects are generally clickable, a "Learn more" button is still needed. Perhaps you would think it was superfluous, in fact, a lot of people if you don't tell them where their mouse should click, they really don't know where to click. This is like the Pi marketing site home processing, although you can click, but I still want to tell you "click here to see details." We can also find that many of the pages on Apple's website are handled this way.

Microsoft's website is deficient in this area. The following image is a screenshot of the Microsoft Office 2010 page:

I'm sure you'll be attracted to the big picture on the right, except to get you "sneak peek", what's next? It seems to me that apart from being messy and difficult to grasp, it is really hard to say the subject and the gist of the presentation. Still the same common problem, too much content. And, without the action button for the deal proposition, when I see so many things, I really don't know where to click the mouse, especially when the content is not the same when clicked in the messy layout. It's a bit of a broken heart!

In the planning and design of the marketing website, when you present to the user too many choices, they have to consider what they want and have to deal with more information. This, however, just lets users not choose, because they are too lazy to consider to deal with. In comparison, Apple's Web site is more successful in guiding the design flow of users, and the user experience is better.

#3: The navigation menu of marketing website

The Apple website's navigation menu has been at the top of the page for many years and remains unchanged. The navigation menu of Apple's website not only indicates the user's main choice, but also integrates the company's brand information and the convenience of search. Very intuitive, Apple's homepage link is the logo picture of Apple.

It is noteworthy that under the main navigation menu, part of the page also has a submenu navigation, as the leading navigation menu to complement and expand. From the content to the style, are consistent.

The Microsoft website's navigation menu is completely different from Apple's. The difference is not just the Pull-down navigation menu, the biggest difference is that there are too many pull-down menus! In this regard, Microsoft's English website performance is the most typical, screenshots are as follows:

Is it good or bad? Now that it exists, I believe it must be reasonable. And I also believe that this is useful. Display many options in groups to make it easy for users to jump directly to the group category they want to select, and then look at the content items.

But there are a lot of problems with this. First, you have to match the group's class settings as much as possible with common sense, and second, as many as 13 content items in Microsoft's Pull-down menu, which undoubtedly increases the difficulty of choosing a process; Finally, it is difficult to maintain consistency in the design style of each content Item page, This makes the user feel is not into a new site, that is, the recognition is not high.

#4: The readability of the marketing website

Because most of the content of the site is in the form of text, in the marketing of Web site planning production and design construction of a major problem is: to maintain the full content of the readability. Here, marketing treason will have several suggestions:

1. Enlarge the text font size appropriately, make the text easy to read;

2. There is a need for a large enough contrast space between the text and the background;

3. The appropriate white, so that other content and pictures do not distract the reader's attention;

4. Highlight or bold to handle the title, so that readers can quickly grasp the key information;

5. Adding pictures or icons to the various parts of the text, such as product or feature descriptions, is beneficial for distinguishing and capturing the reader's attention;

6. The text should be kept concise.

In this connection, another marketing report on Pi marketing, "Apple's 5 marketing ways of making money machines to create a business empire," has already been said to be good.

Headline font size, and very prominent, at a glance to see the key. The rest of the text font is small, but it is not too small to even see the problem. Also, the rest of the important content items are displayed to help you quickly find what you are interested in. Now, take a look at Microsoft's website and the screenshot below is "All Windows Products" page:

Here, marketing treason will not do a lot of comments, but I believe you feel the same as me: not easy to read Ah, too tired eyes.

#5: The style consistency of the marketing website

The consistency of the website design style is very important, which helps you to cultivate the user's usage habits. Simply put, the site's interface design style should be consistent on the whole, at least if the user clicks into a new page will not doubt whether they have touched the other website. Apple's web site in this regard I do not want to say. Take a look at Microsoft's website. The screenshot below is Microsoft's surface page:

If you don't look carefully, do you know this Microsoft website? I really don't know where Microsoft has got the logo. Not to mention style, navigation menu or whatever. Perhaps because of the big cause of Microsoft, although it may also be struggling, but suffer from a large size for a moment can not change. On the Microsoft website, another let me puzzled is that in the product introduction page click Home, return is still the product home page!

Summary of the planning and design of the marketing website

Who is the winner from the ease of use of both Apple and Microsoft's Web site? Many people think that Apple's product design is very cow, in fact its website is no exception. The homepage of Apple's website is available for users to select fewer items, which means that users don't think too much.

And, all pages on Apple's website have been using the navigation menu, the use of a large number of white floor to leave white and subheadings, so that the content better read. It also simplifies and standardizes the design and does not handle the style of the text too much. Obviously, Apple's web site is friendlier and the user experience is better, especially since it has been chasing Apple's newest product.

Perhaps because two companies have different market margins, the size of Apple's Web site is smaller than Microsoft's. The Microsoft website has built a number of different websites and complete ecosystem sites around the Microsoft brand. The biggest problem is the consistency of the web design style.

Yes, Microsoft simply does not have a consistent, unified brand across all sites. Each site makes people feel different. There is no unified navigation menu, and there is no similar to the Apple Web site to give users a consistent visual clues, so that the site throughout the maintenance of a unique brand beauty.

I prefer the Apple website.

Special Note: This article by the marketing treason will be original, Pi marketing website and A5 Starting, reproduced please indicate the original source of http://www.incpi.com/myreport/report9.html. One of the articles, "Apple's 5 marketing ways of making money machines to create a business empire," is the article, A5 online reading address http://www.admin5.com/article/20120925/462132.shtml,