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Microsoft.com redesigned, brings WP7's Metro UI to the Web
A couple of months after Microsoft started testing it, the new Microsoft.com design is now live for everyone. You can see it simply by going to Microsoft.com, whereas until now you had to use a special URL to access it.
The new design is clearly inspired by the Metro UI, and as such makes the website look a lot like the Zune media player, Windows Media Center, and, perhaps most strikingly, Windows Phone 7. Especially reminiscent of Microsoft's newest mobile platform effort is the way you switch between the 'For Home' and 'For Work' parts of the site. When you reach the site, you see the former. To switch to the latter, you click on the arrow that's visible beneath 'For Work', and then the new page just slides into view from the right to the left. A link to 'For Home' then appears where the 'For Work' link used to be, and clicking it results in the same horizontal sliding action that's very rarely seen on the Web.
It certainly looks like, for the first time in many years, Microsoft is aiming to unify the design language across all of their products, services, and Web presences, and that's a very good thing regardless of how you feel about the Metro UI elements. And since Windows 8 is rumored to get some Metro-like UI elements, we're set to see more and more of this design from Microsoft in the coming years, so you'd better get used to it.
Comments
9
Subscribe to commentsDan PritchardMar 17th 2011 8:25PM
Maybe this look will catch on across the web and we can stop wasting time working around MSIE's lack of CSS3 support for rounded corners! Haha. What's old is new again.
DeoWulfMar 17th 2011 9:39PM
Now please bring it to the PC.
I long ago got tired of Aero Glass and cobbled together my own Metro-style theme after studying the design language and core ideas behind it. Unfortunately I'm no graphic designer, so it's a bit lacking. I would love to see Microsoft's take on it.
motangMar 17th 2011 10:00PM
Looks pretty cool
FezMar 18th 2011 3:31AM
The design isn't that great :\. I especially don't like how they've got the gradient going in the background. The UI buttons for the slider look squished and their dropdown menus work click based and the animations suck :\. They've got much more capable designers, I wonder why they don't use them for their MAIN website.
Apple.com > Microsoft.com even though Apple.com is full of lies and misinformation.
EmilMar 18th 2011 4:53AM
Seems to only work in Internet Explorer, or rather you get the old design if using another browser - at least when using Opera I still get the old design. At first I thought I wasn't able to tell the difference but now I know why :)
JoeADMar 18th 2011 7:32AM
@Emil Also still get the old design in Safari
richardMar 18th 2011 5:43AM
Very nice user experience (I could actually click the "for home" and "for work" buttons all day), the overall design still screams "vanilla microsoft" to me though. Visually, the metro UI is driven by type and a very strict grid system, I'm not sure I see that here. I'd say the most visually unique part of the metro UI design is the cropped type, of which there is none in this design.
Overall I'm not impressed, microsoft are capable of way better than this.
blogwardMar 19th 2011 10:42AM
Isn't it about time they updated the 'Windows Update' site? Those pink tulips must be getting pretty rancid by now.
DonMar 19th 2011 2:44PM
I love the new design. It reminds me of mid-nineties design, but updated. Very colorful and straightforward.