Microsoft design Director talk about web design

As design director, Peter Stern has led Microsoft.com to redesign the homepage and has developed five different interactive tools for download Center, product catalog, Profile Center, search and registration online features. He designed the user interface for several internal tools and is working on creating a next-generation home page that will be released later this year.

From the title, you may think that my main concern is the layout design of the thousands of pages of the Microsoft.com Web site. Indeed, these are indeed my concerns. Visual attractiveness is important, but it's just a small part of the job. The ultimate goal is to ensure that the entire site is working properly.

I mean, people usually don't appreciate it as a work of art when they visit microsoft.com. It's about getting information about the product, or having some technical questions to consult, or reading about a developer's journal. So the design of the website should be as clear and organized as possible so that they can easily find the information they need.

Design site

When doing Web design – in the design process – the form should be subject to functionality. This approach applies to our site throughout the design process. Of course, we have the latest WEB tools and the ability to upload a variety of visual gadgets to a Web page. But we do not think that this will be conducive to the provision of effective services to visitors.

In fact, I often find that some sites do not focus on functionality. Common errors include the following:

User interface elements are inconsistent. For example, the same control has different functions on different pages, or the same function corresponds to several user interface controls.

The navigation bar location is not consistent. Determines which pages and features of a site need to be accessible on any page of the site. This is the "Global navigation bar" that should be consistent.

Not paying attention or paying attention to basic graphic design principles. such as layout style, color and layout of the design.
Random grouping of related elements and functions. Note the position and purpose of placing the element on the Web page. This helps visitors infer the functionality of a link from other neighboring selections and locations.

Make the Web page too large to allow visitors to download for a long time via a typical modem-speed Internet connection. This is not to say that graphics should not be used, but you need to select them carefully and then optimize them with appropriate compression and color indexes.

It's not surprising that there are still a lot of problems with Web sites today. After all, Web design "Art" is relatively a novelty. Four or five years ago, Web pages were even common. At that time, people seemed to think that their Web site would attract visitors just because they existed – and that it might, in some cases, actually work. But these sites are generally hard to read, and more importantly, they are really hard to use. The next step is to "see what we can do" phase, adding a lot of animations, sound files and other add-ons to the Web page, causing visitors to download for a long time, but not much real content.

Today's Web designers have learned from previous experiences and lessons. Good sites tend to be simpler and faster, while improving functionality. This is Microsoft's goal, and we are the first to acknowledge our mistakes (see "A Brief History of Microsoft's Web" for a look at the previous homepage design).
Design errors are not always obvious. Sometimes the movement or change of a small element in design will have little or no effect. In other cases, however, it may indeed affect the functionality of the page. And if we've learned something from the past few years, it's that small changes can make a Web page run differently.

A clear process

To avoid similar problems, we have designed a clear process for the creation of new services (such as "search") or for critical Web pages, such as the home page. Each project starts on a certain basis, that is, we have a product or service that benefits from the pages, parts, or user interface elements of our site. In the early stages of product planning (phase 1th), I was asked to design some primary models: sketches that roughly describe a page, part, or function. The product team then examines the product plan recommendations to see if the service can actually bring some benefits to microsoft.com visitors.

If the answer is "yes", then the project will be approved and we'll start writing the project specification (phase 2nd). We create and propose a more complete plan on the basis of the 1th stage sketch and concept. At this point, we will generally start usability testing (typically with a written model) to understand how potential users will react to the planned design. In the final development phase (phase 3rd), we create a WEB prototype that runs the scheduled service and conduct comprehensive usability testing and internal review. Then complete the site code, modify the program error, the last site through the actual operation of the Web site to the customer release.

As you can see, availability plays an important role throughout the process (see "Serious planning is required to create a valid Web interface"). We can run a task time for the user so that we can compare the same test in later versions of the product. We can use this approach to measure to determine whether the redesign of a feature will bring any real value to the customer.

Also, we'll look closely to see if the availability object can figure out how to use the new functionality correctly – what we call "the discovery" approach. Sometimes this presents us with some challenges. For example: On our site, typing a phrase or word in a search engine produces a list of results. Then we ask the user to choose to search through these results for a finer search and to guide a page or resource. But even if "search in results" is clearly marked on a dark label, few people are familiar with it. Some users think they are starting a new search and may have no results. We are addressing this issue to ensure that customers can use all the rich features on Microsoft.com to improve their knowledge of the site.
The option "Search in results" looks intuitive, but it's not very easy to spot. This problem has been one of the problems that has plagued our design.