Microsoft launched a redesign of their home page mid December 2006.

Taking shots at Microsoft in 2007 is like shooting fish in a barrel - when there are reports of 43 people weighing in on the shutdown menu in Vista, well… what more can one say?

Nevertheless, the Microsoft.com home page is an interesting study in trying to make the impossible possible.

You have theoretically unlimited resources to throw at the problem - need months of beta testing? No problem. Longing for mountains of usage data? You go it. Need to bring new people on board? Hey, we’re Microsoft, tens of thousands of people work for us, sure we can hire a few more.

Then there’s the impossible side. You’re the fifth most popular site on the web (according to Microsoft, Alexa puts them currently at 13th.) Your audience includes people using a computer for the first time to developers with decades of experience, and hundreds of millions of people in-between. Your product range is equally diverse.

Externally, meeting all needs on one page is clearly impossible. Internally, I don’t even want to think about the politics that must occur around what makes it onto the home page.

(Hopefully they didn’t have 43 people weighing in on the navigation.)

Nevertheless, how do you distill all this down to one successful home page?

First, lets look at what Microsoft is trying to do.

The current Microsoft.com home page is Microsoft trying to be relevant. With its biggest product launches in years (Vista, Office 2007), Microsoft needs to demonstrate it is still innovating, that it is still producing must-have products you need. To buy. Now.

So what does Microsoft do?

They embrace design.

Compare Microsoft’s current page to previous efforts (2004, 2005, 2006), which could best be described as ‘functional’, and the thing that stands out in the current iteration is the amount of effort they’ve put in to design. They’ve even used a ‘cool’ lightbox effect for their primary navigation! (The implementation of their navigation is something we’ll get to shortly.)

It is a fascinating insight into the current worth of design in the context of the web when a enormous, traditional IT company reaches into its design bag of tricks as its main vehicle of staying - or at least looking - relevant. I’ve no doubt the competition had a little to do with it too.

Does this mean the Microsoft home page redesign was a success?

This is an interesting question.  An updated, modern look (by Microsoft standards), tricky navigation with the lightbox effect parroting an OS window and fancy rollover effects for key content, segmented by audience group or content type - it must have looked great on paper (or PowerPoint, as the case may have been).

It must be said that for Microsoft to be open enough to experiment with these things is somewhat of a success in itself (again, check out the previous efforts). You would also imagine that Microsoft have their own internal metrics to measure the performance of the home page, and any determination of success without that data is going to be quite arbitrary.

Rather than pick the page apart, I want to present one key lesson to be learned from the new design, and that is this:

Never, ever hide links to your key content!

Vista? Office? Both have brand-spanking new web sites of their own and represent Microsoft’s most important launches in years, yet links to these key areas are obfuscated by a vague link ("Products & Related Technologies") which opens up a new, non-standard interface presenting numerous, seemingly equivalent options.

That is fatal.

When you give links to clip art more visibility than links to the operating system and productivity suite millions of people depend on every day, you know you have missed a trick somewhere.

(NB. As of publication, a ‘Windows Vista’ link now appears under ‘Destinations & Events’ - go figure).

In 2007, successful design is designing for scent. It means not hiding links to your key content for the sake of a goofy widget. It means better links with accurate trigger words, not “Products & Related Technologies”. It means more links, not less.

Microsoft or not, you still have to get the basics right, and when it comes to the web, nothing is more fundamental than the humble link. Get that wrong and even with all the resources in the world its hard to see how you can succeed.