Comparing Microsoft and Apple Websites' Usability 314
An anonymous reader writes 'In the article entitled Apple vs. Microsoft — A Website Usability Study, Dmitry Fadeyev, co-founder of Pixelshell, compares Apple's and Microsoft's web sites from a usability perspective, and Apple is the winner. Scott Barnes, PM at Microsoft, agrees with him and suggests the problem is because various site sub-domains have different management.'
What browser? (Score:1, Interesting)
I'd like to know what browser and what computer he was using. In other words: what bias if any?
It'd also be interesting to know his monitor resolution...
Backwater sections (Score:4, Interesting)
Although I agree about the consistency of Apple's site being better in general, both of the site have some pretty horrible out of date 'backwater' regions. If I recall, quite a few of the Apple developer pages have completely inconsistent theming and styles (shadowed text on aqua buttons circa pre-10.4 etc.) and MS's hardware pages with the red top banner are rather crudely squished into the current style on some pages
But I suppose style != usability so this may not have been considered
Interesting double standard, too. (Score:4, Interesting)
Fadeyev remarks that Apple has remained consistent in their approach for many years and uses the home page as an âoeadvertising boardâ. The âoemain ad at the top is hugeâ while the rest of the page has just a few items and lacks any content âoemaking the decision of where to go next easierâ.
Yet, later on, Tim Anderson criticizes Microsoft, saying it's too hard to get past all the marketing. So Apple gets brownie points for having an advertising-board-style main page with little content, and Microsoft gets dinged for having too much marketing and too little content. Hm.
To me, the entire article strikes me as having been written this way: Apple's site is better than Microsoft's. I wonder why?
Re:What browser? (Score:3, Interesting)
TBH both are irrelevant as per the points raised in the article (although certainly the impact of resolution is a valid usability concern). I believe the author is a web designer though so there is obviously no way a designer would have any bias for Apple over Microsoft is there?
Sarcasm aside, most of the points are well reasoned and seem valid so I don't really think bias is a concern. Lack of metrics, yes. Bias though no.
two dings against Microsoft (Score:5, Interesting)
1. The writing on their guides is uniformly attrocious. If I want to learn how to do something, I never follow the Microsoft link but always go to the non-MS ones. They are usually concise and useful.
2. Most of the Microsoft links are broken anyway. It seems like they completely reshuffle their site organization every three months. Any link older than that will inevitably be broken.
Subjectivity (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:What browser? (Score:3, Interesting)
As someone with experience in web design, I have equal hatred for both MS and Apple. Safari on the mac does not render the same as Safari on the PC. IE 6 emulation mode does not render the same as IE 6. Each one requires different special case javascript to do things that work as expected in Opera or Firefox. etc. The list goes on.
Re:What browser? (Score:0, Interesting)
I would like to know absolutely nothing about this. This has to be by far the most worthless article slashdotted I have ever seen. First of all the topic is so increadibly uninteresting, and even for those few that actually use the sites in this way, rather than those not stuck in 1995 who just google whatever they want together with +microsoft.com or +apple.com, it is by far mostly about cognitive behaviour. If you have been taught that the menu is on the top right corner, you will always look for a menu at the top right corner. If you've been taught that the menu can be in any corner you will always look for a menu in any corner. See where I'm going with this? So seriously, timothy, you'd have done better linking to about:blank.
Re:What browser? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Interesting double standard, too. (Score:5, Interesting)
You missed some important differentiating details about those ads and amount of content. Apple has only one ad and it is very clear. There is a specific call to action (sign up) and additional points on why this action should be taken. The remaining content, while there isn't much of it, is clearly displayed and is inviting. Microsoft's, on the other hand, had multiple ads, but two of which you couldn't see without user interaction. The content below was too busy and too boring (just small text links), which makes the user ask, "Why should I bother reading through these links, let alone click on one of them?". It's not about an Ad:Content ratio, it's about how the ads/content are displayed and what is expected of the user. I recently worked on a project that involved a lot of web page design from a wireframing/layout perspective (rather than the "ooh shiny!" perspective). What I learned from this experience is that you need to be very clear on what you expect the user to do upon visiting the site. That usually means keeping it simple. If the user is unsure what they are suppose to do or every feel lost or like the information they need is not at this site or on this page, you've lost them. I've used Microfts site from time to time and it's always a horrible experience. Something I was thinking about today when I was on their MSDN site. I always find it impossible to find what I need. With msdn.com I've figured out where I need to go by now, but the first few times were painful. I want to find where to download MS software and product keys (for example, a copy of Windows 7), so the first thing I do is click on the big "Downloads" menu. Bzzzt! Wrong! To download software, I don't go to the main downloads page I go to a separate link found in my account information box all the way over on the right side of the page. Even just finding normal free consumer software from their main microsoft.com page is impossible to find. When you think you found where the download link is, you are hit with marketing crap, but no link to download. I always have to do a search to find it. User's don't want to search, they want to browse.
I'd rather just use Google. (Score:2, Interesting)
Apples to... Oranges? (Score:2, Interesting)
Doesn't Microsoft put out about 100x as many products as Apple? Seems like Microsoft will have to fit 10 times as much content on their site. I bet MSDN alone is bigger than everything Apple has put out combined.
It is a challenge to try and fit a lot of information - especially detailed complex information - into a single easy-to-use web site.
Re:Interesting double standard, too. (Score:1, Interesting)
So, how do I get to http://trailers.apple.com/ [apple.com] from http://www.apple.com/ [apple.com] without going straight there via URL? It appears that, for sake of usability, Apple has ditched many of the navigation buttons to other sites they own, while MS tries to make it a "one-stop-shop" effect. Not saying that they are getting it right, but it is pretty typical of the two.
Personally I think that both sites are a little heavy on advertising, but really, so is Amazon. But is logical since all three sites are doing the same thing, selling you stuff. If you went into a store that did not have stuff on display (AKA advertised in the store) you would complain. I think that the real test is not the base pages, but the support pages, since once you have the product, that is where you are more likely to go. Other then that, it is all advertising.
Apple has multiple websites to. (Score:3, Interesting)
Look at http://developer.apple.com/ [apple.com] or http://opensource.apple.com/ [apple.com] and you'll find completely separate websites run by different groups, with different styles and goals.
Re:Discoverable URLs (Score:5, Interesting)
If you actually type in the product names as they are advertised and branded, you'll find that they give you what you'd expect. Try doing it for Final Cut (or Final Cut Studio, if you prefer), iPod, iTunes, Safari, Mac OS X, Snow Leopard, iLife, iWork, Mac Pro, Macbook Pro, Macbook, iMac, or any of their actual product lines and you'll probably have pretty good success. They even still have sensible URLs for some of their legacy products, such as if you try to find Shake (redirects to Final Cut Studio), iBook (redirects to Macbook), AppleWorks (redirects to a support page for AppleWorks).
As for finding things on sites, I think it's a simple difference of culture (which ties back in nicely with the results of the study from the article). Because of the consistency inherent in Apple's designs, a lot of Mac users don't use a search engine as a line of first resort when they need to find something related to their Macs from Apple. Everything has a place that makes sense in the context of everything else. With typical Windows users and search engines, the opposite seems to be true, at least in my observation.
Re:Interesting double standard, too. (Score:4, Interesting)
Yet, later on, Tim Anderson criticizes Microsoft, saying it's too hard to get past all the marketing.
Apple's design is consistent, with the one ad, and main menu items to get you where you want. MS has pop-ups on numerous pages that get in the way when you try to actually go places. That's a usability problem. You do know this is a usability study, right?
So Apple gets brownie points for having an advertising-board-style main page with little content, and Microsoft gets dinged for having too much marketing and too little content.
No, Apple gets points for having consistent main headings that are easy to understand, while MS's are inconsistent categorizations and overlap confusing the user. If I want to know about Excel to I go to "Windows and Office" or "All Products" or will both get me there? What if I want support on it? Do I go to "Support" or one of the previous two?
To me, the entire article strikes me as having been written this way: Apple's site is better than Microsoft's. I wonder why?
Because Apple hires and listens to usability experts for the Web while MS listens to each department head for a given area first, then tries to get usability people to make it "OK" after. It's not like this is surprising or new though. Anyone who has ever taken a course or read books on usability sees MS UI's as examples of what not to do or "common mistakes". MS has never been serious about usability testing for whatever reason.
Re:Interesting double standard, too. (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:GUI Guidelines. (Score:4, Interesting)
Have you used the unintuitive piece of shit called "iTunes for Windows" that makes zero sense to those unfamiliar with the OS X UI?
What I find really funny about this is that I remember back in the day people installing iTunes even though they did not have iPods, solely for the purpose of ripping CDs. They did it because they could not figure out how to accomplish the task using WMP or any of the other software most people used to play music. The iTunes UI is certainly nonstandard for Windows (not that that is unusual) but I'd say the usability is actually pretty decent. Heck, I'm willing to bet if you sit a Windows user who has never seen either in front of iTunes and WMP and run a regular usability test, iTunes will win. I'm not 100% sure, and usability testing has surprised me in the past, but that would be my bet.
Re:What browser? (Score:5, Interesting)
Me too.
The thing that pisses me off the most, though, is that if you use the Microsoft site's own search it returns broken links.
Google doesn't give me broken links on Microsoft's site. Why does Microsoft's search?
Note that I haven't tried much since it all got branded Bing. Maybe Bing got it right. Doubt it tho.
Re:What browser? (Score:3, Interesting)
Microsoft's website spams me about IE 8. Apple shove a full screen image with an Ipod advert, meaning I have to click to get to anything else.
Having just gone to each site (in safari and firefox) the main difference I see is that Microsoft's IE 8 advert is a pop-up (or at least covers website space that normally displays something else). Apple's site has a huge advertisement for the iPod Nano, but it's not actually covering anything. It's what they decide to use their front page for. As an internet user I absolutely detest pop-ups (and everything else that websites use to throw advertisement in your face. If you're not willing to dedicate space to advertising then it's not worth it) and would prefer something a little more static. But then again, website design is 90% opinion and 10% objective.
Re:What browser? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:What browser? (Score:5, Interesting)
Honestly, who cares - they're both designed by people who know little about creating decent websites.
I don't know how you got away with this statement since it's just out-and-out wrong.
One of these sites exhibits nearly identical behavior with Javascript turned off (see other comments attached to this article for detail), bleeding edge technologies with graceful degradation, good semantic markup, good consistency in appearance and behavior across browsers, no detected accessibility errors [webaim.org], and an acceptance and embracing of open standards. It even comes extremely close to validating [w3.org] (those errors might even be explainable by the warning given on the page regarding "cutting edge technology"). The other? Not so close. [w3.org]
For some additional backup from the likes of webdesignerdepot.com [webdesignerdepot.com] and others [catswhocode.com]
The Apple website is one of the best websites out there due to its ease of use, functionality and the beautiful environment that it creates.
In terms of web design, Apple.com is a very good exemple of clean semantic code and stunning graphics.
Admittedly, I'm an Apple fanboy, but come on. Even the most unabashed of Apple haters should be able to agree that there was a team of skilled and capable people behind its creation. It's by no means perfect, but there's a reason it's cited time and again as one of the best-designed sites on the Web, and it's not just because of the pretty pictures.
Re:Try each site with Javascript OFF (Score:3, Interesting)
Web standards and graceful degradation seem to be at the forefront of Apple's way of thinking. If you check out the Safari page, it's built using HTML5 but degrades gracefully in browsers that don't support HTML5 yet.
Re:Interesting double standard, too. (Score:3, Interesting)
As I stated, it seems you are the one coming to the conversation with a predetermined opinion. They just are laying providing an analysis of what a vast majority of tech insiders and consumers already feel when looking at their products side by side.