Re: Design Theory open space

Christian Lavoie <clavoie(at)enter-net.com> wrote:

>Depends on what part of the site you are talking about... The main page
>(http://www.microsoft.com/ie40.htm, as I use IE5 when under Win95) is
pretty
>nice, I must agree. But the iste on it's whole is as badly dne as possible,
>IMHO. It took me an hour and more to find the latest themes.exe patch last
>week. And that's not the first I or someone I know get this kind of
angrying
>situation with this site.


I find the Microsoft site both good and bad.

I think individual pages are very well done. Their use of typography,
positioning, and white space is excellent (if you use their browsers!). They
don't overdo the graphics (one of my pet hates on web pages) and the
relevant information on the page is usually clear and well presented.

What I dislike is the navigation around the site. Quite simply, their
hypertext sucks. I don't have the time or inclination to analyse their
navigation model, I just know that it is extremely difficult to find what
you want on their site. Links are not always intuitive and the information
is often chunked in a very arbitrary manner.

I consider myself a fairly experienced user of hypertext systems, and if I
struggle to get round their site then I wonder how the average web surfer
manages?

Incidentally, their site is by no means the worst out there in this respect!

--
David Meadows [ Technical Writer | Information Developer ]
DNRC  Minister for Littorasy * david(at)heroes.force9.co.uk
"Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it!
 Boldness has genius, power and magic in it." --Goethe

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