Many of these ‘designers’ commenting are USERS of the mac and NOT users of the MS site. Mind you, a graphic designer is totally a different job as an interaction designer or usability specialist let alone an IT guy .. OF COURSE there is always stuff that can be pointed out to be improved in ANY site. Yes, even the mac site!

However, for some reason, design decisions are made which may never be clear to those who are not part of the target users .. The author of this article is clearly not part of MS’s target user group site .. Therefore he could never properly write about it, if you ask me .. Whenever someone asks me as an interaction designer to say something about the usability of a product I generally start off with some kind of disclaimer beforehand, where I tell that I can not look into the target user’s world, product goals, budget, deadline and other important decision-influencing variables

As said by some other people in here, it’s like comparing apples and oranges .. Different content, different products, different target audience .. No one in here knows the exact goals of both of the sites (or sub-sites) and can therefore never tell if these goals are reached.. Maybe there are some parts of the MS site that actually do a good job? And maybe a mac web-page might look good but might not answer the visitor’s question where she thinks she’d find the answer?

Only way to compare these two is to ask all the sites’ ‘native users’ in a qualitative research about what they think: what to they need more, less, different, etc .. Because, just maybe those IT guys do not care about the same things as those mac users .. ??

just 2c from a ‘MS user of who everyone thinks he’s a “mac kind of guy”‘

Firstly, simply ask a ten year old to compare the sites, then ask a ninety year old, wonder which percent would be higher? 1% Microsoft – 99% Apple at a guess.

Just to dig into the navigation part from my view. The original article (if you want to scroll all the way back up (or just use the Home Key)) stating that he didn’t feel like he was on a Microsoft web page or not and visitors here arguing back that there are lots of departments in Microsoft blah blah blah…

Well a smaller market, HUGE in Australia, bigpond.com which is an Australian Internet Provider (ISP) who is managed by telstra.com, Australia’s leading telecommunication company. They have this simple icon to let the users know you are on one of their sites. As bigpond has monthly download limit and once you have used it you will be slowed down to dial-up speed but re-set to broadband speed on the specific day of the month you signed up on. How ever, on your monthly limit if you are on a site where you see this specific icon it is not counted in your download. Simple, easy to follow, I know I am on one of their pages so I can download all those’s mp3 or watch those videos without worrying about using up my limit.

Why doesn’t Microsoft have their logo on every page so the viewer knows they are viewing their web site? So simple.

Apples Navigation, not original but fantastic, lets us know we are on an Apple page and the Home button is always there as with bigpond and Telstra. Microsoft rushed the job to get it out and worry about the little bits later, as long as it’s out, that’s Ok. (Hmm, some reason VISTA came to mind then)

Well thanks for the fine reading folks, I’ll be back in a year and check the progress…

So lets see, we are at this site quite likely people that are valuing the design higher enough (so do I apparently) so no wandering why we all like that much better the Apple’s. If we join here what is to be more like the general representation of the whole, thing will start getting a bit more “liquid” I am sure.

So, what I am saying – clearly apples design is far more appealing. But it is much more so in terms of creating impression and making your way easier through. Not so much though when you got past that point, things get a bit more detailed then, and the ability to scope them in a simple zen way goes down, which is a real challenge for both Apple and MS – one on the one side of the problem, and the other on the opposite one.