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.'
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I agree about the consistency of Apple's site being better in general, both of the site have some pretty horrible out of date 'backwater' regions.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
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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: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.
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
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:5, Insightful)
I don't give a crap about appearance and marketing.
The comparison was on usability, which can be affected by appearance, but usually is not significantly so. Marketing is considered when it detracts from usability.
What I want is to find the fix or download I need. If I google (or even live search) an error code from Microsoft 9 times out of 10 I'll get a link to a KB. If I google an Apple error code I'll get nothing, thats after I've gone into the command line to find out what the actual error code is because Apple thinks displaying the actual error is a bad idea.
What you find in Google has no bearing on the usability of the sites being compared. You seem to have completely missed the point. As for errors, what kind of errors are you having trouble finding out about? You're a bit vague on the topic. Can you provide an example?
An MS fix is often found in under an hour...
It's funny, I don't remember having to look up fixes for OS X ever. I have to look up configuration settings when I'm doing something unusual, like installing a specialty kernel module, but not really fixes. What fixes have you had to look up?
Trying to find a fix for OS X or updated firmware is not the easiest task because this is not Apple's modus operandi.
Umm, firmware updates show up automatically in OS X, via the update mechanism. If for some reason that did not work (I've never heard of this problem) you could run the firmware updater and it will pull down the updates from the server. I'm still not clear what fixes you need to look up.
Where most Mac fanboys fail is comparing everything to Apple's goals rather then the organisation in question's goals.
Umm, this was a usability test of Websites, not a comparison of organizations. Are you calling a Microsoft exec you thinks the MS Web page is less usable a "Mac fanboy"?
MS's site is entirely designed entirely for professionals, people who know what they need and can easily figure out how to get it, with this goal in mind MS's site is very well designed.
Not really. I'm a professional. The MS exec is a professional. The usability engineer is a professional. As a usability tester myself, I certainly see where MS has violated some basic design principals that will make their site more difficult to use for anyone, simply because it is ambiguous. You seem to be defending MS's choices, but I'm not sure why and you have not addressed any of the specific mentioned. Frankly, I think you are just emotionally invested in your opinion.
Nonsense like Apple's primary business being marketing does nothing at all to make your argument more persuasive, it just makes you look hopelessly biases to the point where you have no credibility. I have an idea for you. Go read a good book on usability and Web design, then go look at the two sites and try to apply what you learned impartially. Then, get back to all of us with specific points of UI design and why you think MS's site is more usable and in what specific way.
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I phrased it wrong. I meant to put quotes around it. i.e., "Apple's site is better than Microsoft's. I wonder why?" In other words, the article was setting out to show why they had the conclusion they already had, not to actually gather a conclusion from an objective set of standards.
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As I stated, it seems you are the one coming to the conversation with a predetermined opinion. They just are la
GUI Guidelines. (Score:5, Insightful)
Apple understands design and focuses on it. The have GUI design docs and the follow them and enforce them stringently.
If you weren't aware, Microsoft also has very specific GUI guidelines [guuui.com] as well... Guidelines that Apple forces their Windows programmers to not follow. Have you used the unintuitive piece of shit called "iTunes for Windows" that makes zero sense to those unfamiliar with the OS X UI?
iTunes on OS X isn't half bad. iTunes on Windows is Apple's lock-in approved way of forcing the customer to think long and hard about throwing his phone or MP3 player at the wall because he can't understand why his desktop keeps erasing the music he put on it with his laptop without calling the manufacturer.
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Agreed - that, and Quicktime too. Appalling UIs. Now sure, normally one might say it's unfair to judge Macs here based on their Windows software, but given that "But they are good at UIs" is the one thing we hear about them, and given that there's no reason why Windows is to blame for Quicktime's and Itune's poor UIs (indeed, as you note, they specifically avoid the Windows GUI and guidelines), it makes me very suspicious about the claims of "good UIs" in general.
But apparently, because Apple's website is s
Re:GUI Guidelines. (Score:5, Insightful)
What's wrong with QuickTime's UI?
It's a program designed to play videos, and that alone. IMO, it seems to do a pretty good job of that (resource bloat in the Windows version notwithstanding). QuickTime Pro has some rudimentary editing capabilities built-in as well that are extremely useful if you just want to trim or combine a few clips (Apple finally started including this for free with Snow Leopard)
Windows Media Player has feature-creep out the wazoo, while VLC seems doomed to be forever rough around the edges (despite being otherwise fantastic)
Even the iTunes Windows UI isn't *that* awful. It could use some improvement, though it certainly seems to remain far more faithful to Microsoft's UI guidelines than Windows Media Player does.
Re:GUI Guidelines. (Score:4, Insightful)
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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.
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This post, however, probably is.
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>Windows and Microsoft isn't about design; they are about marketing and mass consumption.
Oh please. Microsoft is like a marketplace while Apple is a communist state. I like my iphone but frankly its lock in hell if you dont jailbreak it. You can write any shitty app you want for windows mobile without the censors beating you down, not so much in the app store.
As much as I like Apple, I find their dictatorial business decisions are based on profit but defensed as "good design" or "the end users are too
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Hello Mr Pot? This is Mr Kettle calling.
If you actually gave a shit about lock-in, you'd be talking about the virtues of Linux... not Windows. Besides, at least with Mac, I can get to the underlying BSD backend and the actual code behind the machine. On Windows you have to wait until 'Mr Bill' gets off his ass to fix it. So don't try to claim lock-in is the
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What I find interesting is that your comments with respect to the Apple site also apply to websites run by Mac users. Ever see an ugly website run by a Mac user? Hell, has anyone seen an ugly Mac user?
By con
Re:Interesting double standard, too. (Score:4, Insightful)
"Though who really cares about site navigation anymore?"
People who design usable websites?
Maybe try fixing it... (Score:2, Flamebait)
Re:Maybe try fixing it... (Score:5, Insightful)
It's pretty naive to think anything comes before company politics, be it at Microsoft or Apple or any other publicly traded company.
Re:Maybe try fixing it... (Score:4, Funny)
You can avoid thrown chairs but nobody can outrun the reality distortion field.
Size of site might affect also (Score:3, Insightful)
That wasn't unexpected. (Score:5, Insightful)
Apple's detractors consider the company to be a bunch of control freaks, which is true, but that's exactly why their user interfaces are so consistent and usability is so high. Their mania for controlling every aspect of the user's experience has an upside and a downside. That the company that's so driven for consistency on the App Store also has a consistent website should hardly be astonishing.
As for Microsoft's website, the company's main product has a number of different interfaces for different things, when there's no sensible reason for it to be different (Office uses the Ribbon, but Internet Explorer doesn't, to take one example). That the company whose main product has a number of different and confusing elements has a similar website is also not astonishing. A finished system's structure tends to mimic the structure of the group that produced it. Read about the Windows Shutdown Crapfest [blogspot.com] and think about the implications for their website.
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Just for argument's sake, the critique of what the "turn off" button should have been is ridiculous. There should only be one "off" button? Basically, he assumes a ton... like you don't want to have to choose between power off, log off, and sleep... that you shouldn't have to choose between sleep and hibernate... etc.
My desktop computer presumably has the ability to sleep and hibernate but due to some weird BIOS stuff, it doesn't work well. In fact, it messes up the BIOS systems. I'm sure glad I'm able
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There should only be one "off" button?
Yes, because any more buttons and the average consumer gets confused. ...
That said feature anemia is preferred to many over feature creep simply because even if you try to please everyone with all the possible features you are going to confuse and upset the majority of your users when that causes usability problems or in the case of many of Microsoft's projects... "unintended features" ;)
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I'm willing to go for more than just one option when you go: it seems to me that the two obvious hardware things are (1) close laptop (sleep), and (2) hit button (turn off). So the menu should give you those two choices, along with "restart" and "log out". Still, that's only 4 menu items. And I see no reason at all to include a software shutdown button which looks like the physical shutdown button on the laptop. Even if we want "lock" on the menu, I don't see why it needs a button either.
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A finished system's structure tends to mimic the structure of the group that produced it. Read about the Windows Shutdown Crapfest [blogspot.com] and think about the implications for their website.
Actually I am thinking about the implications about the product... if you check out this comment [blogspot.com] on that article which explains the reason behind the source control structure, they are controlling a symptom of the problem not the problem. No wonder MS products are so unstable and vulnerable, with wild dependencies going all over the place, only found out months after things are broken, I'm with other commenters and I wonder how they ever released a product at all!
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Apple's detractors consider the company to be a bunch of control freaks, which is true, but that's exactly why their user interfaces are so consistent and usability is so high. Their mania for controlling every aspect of the user's experience has an upside and a downside.
And the downside lies clearly in usefulness. The problem of Apple's website is that, in maintaining cleanliness and consistency, they sacrificed the actual *information* on their webpages, besides their self-serving marketing.
No, Microsoft's isn't any better, as it somehow manages to be both cluttered *and* useless at the same time. But a website that's both consistent, usable, and most importantly *useful* is that of IBM, in particular DeveloperWorks [ibm.com]. Of course, that's probably a result of both having comp
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.
Re:two dings against Microsoft (Score:5, Informative)
This issue seems to be getting worse as time goes on. I had grown used to finding the occasional reference to a knowledge base article from a third party site or article to be broken. It seems like over the last year, I've found internal links on their site that are broken. For example, there might be a TechNet article that points to a knowledge base article, and that link is broken.
Microsoft's site is pretty horrible. Their knowledge base is atrocious. If I had to make a wild ass guess, I'd say that I can actually find the solution to my Microsoft related problem by using their support tools only about 25% of the time. For the longest time until Microsoft shut Google out of their site, Google was my preferred search tool for microsoft.com related material. If it weren't for the huge numbers of people using and supporting Microsoft software, they would have gone under from a lack of support. Any other company out there that put out a product that is so hard to support and resolve issues with would go out of business. Microsoft gets a pass because so many people are stuck with the crap that we don't have any other choice but to find ways to make it work. I think it's an almost conscious decision intended to drive people to their PAID support offerings. The two or three times in the last ten plus years that I've actually had to call Microsoft for support, they resolved the issue. One time they even refunded the cost of the support call because the issue turned out to be a bug with their software. On that time they had a hot fix coded and available for me in less than 24 hours.
Wish I had mod points here... (Score:4, Informative)
Their "free" support options, being their general and KB website articles, and their newsgroups are pretty hard to get through. Finding anything not driven by a search or external link into their site on their site is nearly impossible, and most of their newsgroups are too busy to actually keep up with. Their paid support is pretty top notch, but it's more expensive to have a handful of issues with them than to get a support contract with Oracle, RedHat or Novell for Linux.
The real annoying thing is they don't have a 301 permanent redirect module setup with their CDN. If a KB article's link moves, then point to it.. if it's outdated, point to the relevant article... I'm really tired of having nothing but trouble re-finding something from 3+ months ago.
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It is harder ... (Score:2)
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Re:It is harder ... (Score:5, Informative)
... to maintain a website with more sub-domains and more information. It seems obvious to me that the Microsoft site in general is just gi-normous ... therefore they have trouble epsecially with consistency. Apple just doesn't have as many things on their sites, and rightfully so considering Microsoft is a global giant, therefore the Apple employees have more time to sit around and play with the look and feel and user friendliness of a website. imho
True, Apple's site does have fewer things, but it's not because Apple has fewer products. Apple's site has three decades worth of hardware and software documentation on it. The Apple site still has manuals and system software for Apple II series machines, if you go looking for it.
The illusion that the MS site has "more stuff" is partly a result of poor organization, and partly a result of Microsoft's tendency to release a half dozen different "editions" of a product when one would do fine.
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Apple's site has three decades worth of hardware and software documentation on it. The Apple site still has manuals and system software for Apple II series machines, if you go looking for it.
Are all these things findable from direct links? And that doesn't negate the point - just because a company's been around for as long, doesn't mean it has as many products on its website.
Even using their search, the UI is so bad I can't find, e.g., downloads for System 7 (is it in products, or downloads?)
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Bullshit. Apple has far few products that Microsoft. Especially if you discount old, discontinued stuff.
Microsoft: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Microsoft_software_applications [wikipedia.org]
Apple: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Inc.#Current_products [wikipedia.org]
(The formatting is a bit different, but you can tell that MS has a lot more products.)
Re:It is harder ... (Score:5, Informative)
I was thinking the same. Does Apple even have the equivilent of Technet or MSDN? Microsoft has a ton of stuff for IT professionals to pull resources. I have only gone to Apples website for iTunes....
Look here: http://developer.apple.com/ [apple.com]
Study? (Score:2)
Its an opinion piece. A well written one and I've no problem with the content but lets call a spade a spade please.
No brainer... (Score:3, Insightful)
Apple's website is often considered one of the most consitant and well constructed sites on the internet. Microsoft has done a pretty good job, but considering what they're up against, they should be proud to even be in the same sentance (as far as websites are concerned). Apple's unifomity and consistancy in their webdesign is nothing except extroardinary. It's so consistant that sometimes it takes me a second to realize which part of the website I'm at. This is not really a bad thing in an age where with most websites, you have to spend 30 seconds relearning the navigation system for every page. Apple really's design really breathes, with no clutters of information, and everything segrigated to very intuitive regions. In the end, grayscale color schemes ALMOST always win out. After months of use, colors always eventually get irritating, high contrasts lose their "cool" factor, and you're left feeling like your looking at a candy wrapper. OSs and websites should almost always revolve around neutral colors, because you're never sure what's going to clash horribly, or become illegible with the design. That said, I don't think Microsoft has really broken those rules, their low contrast blue is quite appealing... very MacOS Aqua-like, actually... but once again, they're not very consistant with it. Just one page in, "Windows 7" and you're faced with an ugly green stripe across the center of the page that looks horribly out of place next to the wispy blue. Microsoft REALLY needs to work on their color scheme consistancy. They have virtually no universal branding.
MS vs. Apple? (Score:3, Informative)
Broader product lines and divisions... (Score:5, Insightful)
Consider the case of GE--the website for consumer appliances should be very different than that of jet engines and that of financial services -- all GE products.
Apple has the advantage of a very limited product line; a mini desktop, a pro desktop and a couple of laptops, a phone, a couple of applications, an OS and a music player. Their target audience is 98% consumers.
This is a much simplier case than Microsoft which sell a product range from an OS, search, hardware, games, low-end serves, high-end servers, a wide range of applications (from consumer to heavy-duty data centers). It's target market is primarily businesses, but ranges from micro business to enterprise, but also includes a significant consumer audience.
It's too bad the reviewer didn't consider content or target audiences.
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I disagree that Microsoft has a larger range of products than Apple. They may have larger install bases, they may come in more flavors, but for every product that Microsoft has, there is almost always virtually an Apple product that matches up. A website is about marketing and support, of which both companies have to do with all their products. iWork has to have just as good support as Office does. XServe has to have just as good marketing and support as Microsoft's server software. It's the ability of a co
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While i agree with the rest of your point, Microsoft DEFINATELY has a -significantly- broader range of product than Apple. I'm not familiar with 100% of Apple's offering, so I'm sure you'll be able to prove me wrong on some of these (in which case I'd want to know, since having more products to compare is always a good thign), but what is Apple's equivalent product in the following category?
Content Management
Intranet/portal
Robotics development
Bare metal hypervisor, as well as desktop virtual machines
Game Co
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So?
Then please name an ERP software made by Apple.
Or maybe an SQL server? A geographic information system then? A CRM solution maybe?
And, since you are so sure that there is no difference between a business user and a home user, please explain to me why a home user would need some CRM software.
Differences... (Score:4, Insightful)
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The main differences are the point of the websites. People are more likely to go to Microsoft's site for support, not to buy and compare things. People are more apt to go to Apple's site who are curious about its site and purchase something. While Apple does have good support on its website, it only has a few product lines, not a ton of products like MS.
I'm not going to argue with you, per se, but it seems like Apple should have MORE to sell, shouldn't they? I mean, they've got hardware AND software. They've got an OS and iLife and various pro applications. They even sell THIRD PARTY hardware and software on their site. Their online store is just like one of their retail stores. How many products does Microsoft have that they're having trouble keeping their product-line and sales site cohesive?
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What is your point there? That Apple does a few things very well and Microsoft a lot poorly? Since when has bloat been a valid excuse for poor design?
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Subjectivity (Score:3, Interesting)
Discoverable URLs (Score:5, Insightful)
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Say you want to learn about Safari. You go to apple.com/safari, as you'd expect. What if you wanted to learn about Internet Explorer? You need to go to microsoft.com/windows/internet-explorer/default.aspx
Really? [microsoft.com] You really think so? Funny, it worked just fine for me.
Try it. Just type in http://microsoft.com/ie in your address bar, press Enter and see what happens.
Who could have guessed that without a search engine?
Obviously not you, since it seems you didn't even try it.
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Your post applies to, *maaaybe*, 0.05% of the population who not only directly types in URLs (instead of using bookmarks/search/address bar history), but also types in URLs they've never seen before. So while it's a valid point, it's not worth any web developer's time to think about.
Despite that, http://microsoft.com/ie [microsoft.com] works. As does http://microsoft.com/office [microsoft.com] and http://microsoft.com/windows [microsoft.com] . Hell, even http://microsoft.com/sql [microsoft.com] goes directly to SQL Server 2008.
So it's not worth any web developer's time
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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.
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www.microsoft.com/office -> office online
www.microsoft.com/office2007 -> office 2007.
www.microsoft.come/zune -> ...
they all appear to work as well. I fail to see how this is a point for apple :)
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Other than the fact you get an immediate "We are sorry, the page you requested cannot be found" error, of course.
They both SUCK (Score:2, Informative)
Seriously, neither are very good. Neither allow you to find things quickly. Both make you jump through hoops to get to things (Microsoft Genuine absolutely turned their web site to poop). Both use flash or web 2.0 garbage when a nice simple static web page would suffice. Both are full of condescending marketing rubbish. You might as well be comparing two turd sandwiches. Consider the resources both companies have to throw at the problem.
Think different? Where did you want to be today? Puhlease. I wanted to
Both suck for different reasons (Score:2)
I already griped about Microsoft's site in response to another post in this thread. Apple's site sucks for a different reason. Apple's site seems to be almost 100% marketing related. Any searches done on that site bring up a whole slew of marketing materials and little to no results of a technical nature. For example, a month or so ago I was trying to figure out how to make the Genius feature work on my iPod. Searching for "Genius" brought up all sorts of information about how great and innovative and
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That's why it won't work on your iPod. Your iPod isn't gonna have access to anything that isn't already on your computer's iTunes -- at least not if Apple has any say about it.
I don't trust that feature as far as I can (metaphorically) t
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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.
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.
No iPhone specific Apple website? (Score:2)
I do a lot of Windows, Mac and iPhone development and have found both site to be user-friendly from a developers perspective.
I've always been surprised though that Apple has never made an iPhone-specific website; especially the Online Store. They make it very frustrating to buy anything through their online Store using one of their devices. That pretty much shuts out any impulse/drunk buyers.
Try each site with Javascript OFF (Score:5, Informative)
Here's something I found interesting, being a NoScript user.
I went to the Apple website, and not having apple.com in the whitelist, I didn't notice it was any different than normal (I had it whitelisted elsewhere). It was only until I got deeper into the navigation did things start to break. I then realized that apple.com was set to BLOCKED by default (NoScript is a whitelist, after all), yet Apple's site didn't immediately become unusuable. In fact, it degraded so gracefully that I never noticed the differences. There were a few, like how the product scroller (on the Mac page) had a rather un-Apple scrollbar (rendered by Firefox), but everything still clicked and acted normal (I thought it was just a Firefox thing). No, JavaScript was off - with it on, it's as I expect.
I think the ones that failed would've been the iTunes download pages, and the Apple ads (which only let you download the "web" tiny versions - the JavaScript version lets you go all the way to 720p). Maybe even the Apple movie trailers (I can't remember).
It's not often you come across a modern website whose no-Javascript mode is so similar to the Javascript mode, and with very, very few rendering flaws that would normally clue you in.
Either Apple designs their website without Javascript support (or minimal support) or their web maintainers are skillful at the art of graceful degradation.
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As a web developer and Mac user I've always found the evolution of the Apple website interesting. Not surprisingly, they keep use of Flash to a minimum (actually, I'm not sure that they use Flash at all on their site) and things are fairly neat and tidy.
You can tell who understands usability and web architecture by looking at the comments in this story. Apple gets it, Microsoft doesn't, despite people's efforts to defend them.
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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:What browser? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not sure why browser matters, Microsoft's sites are crap, they always have been. Apple's site is pretty straightforward.
I'd give MS SOME leeway for the fact that they have like 8 trillion products to Apple's, what, 12?
But other than that this is kindof a nobrainer.
Re:What browser? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:What browser? (Score:5, Informative)
MSDN is so bad that 100% of the time I'm looking up a Windows API function I go to google and type:
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.
No way, man (Score:3, Informative)
No, it seriously is. Not only is it dead easy to navigate, but you can just type php.net/function_name_here, and it'll redirect you to the documentation for that function.
Dead awesome. And yeah, the documentation is extremely clear, and there is an unusually high number of code examples (plus the area for user-contributed notes, of which 50% are complete noob, and 50% are pure genius).
Re:What browser? (Score:5, Insightful)
http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/games/ [apple.com]
What's so hard about that- even the URLs are clean and logical. Not to mention iPods, iPhones, Airports, Displays, Laptops, Desktops, Network Backups, Keyboards, Mice and Software of all kinds, both by Apple and 3rd parties.
It's just that Apple started with a plan.
Re:What browser? (Score:4, Insightful)
MS site isn't THAT bad.
Companies are different. Their focus is different. Apple sells its product directly - thus site is optimized with end users in mind. MS orients itself as a partner company - thus its web site is a kind of source of bullets points for PowerPoint presentations which can be reused by its partners when selling MS products. Both serve their purpose.
Frankly best analogy was already made here [youtube.com]. It says it all.
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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.
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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:4, Insightful)
Safari on the mac does not render the same as Safari on the PC
I've found a number of instances where Safari/Firefox differ, but I have never tested Safari Mac versus Safari PC -- do you happen to have an example of this?
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Sorry. Not that I can specifically reference. All my cross browser work was at a previous job, and I didn't keep my notes. Part of it was the way the javascript engine interfaced with a silverlight video player object.
Re:What browser? (Score:4, Insightful)
That's a pretty specific issue compared to the statement you made previously that WebKit renders differently on the Mac and PC. One wonders if it's actually an issue with Silverlight.
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Perhaps I was a bit broad with safari, the issues I had to deal with were with the javascript engine, the most difficult issue was interacting with silverlight.
I still hated dealing with it, I don't think they could have made it any more of a pain in the ass to debug javascript in safari.
Re:What browser? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:What browser? (Score:5, Insightful)
None of his points would be changed by changing the browser.
He's not talking about heavy use of IE- or Safari-proprietary plugins or things that would be blocked by AdBlock or NoScript, he's talking about navigation and readability.
No matter what browser you use, Apple's "less clutter" approach and rigid consistency in keeping the banners, colors, and navigation features of the site the same no matter where you are made a positive impression in the study. You go to the site, and the experience remains consistent and predictable throughout. Change from OSX to the iPhone pages, or go to get QuickTime, and you are constantly looking at something that is obviously an Apple web site. They don't even need a logo on the site, though it is always there and always in the same spot looking exactly the same.
Microsoft's inconsistency in terms of page layouts, colors, where the search bar is, where the company logo is and what it looks like, where the banners and navigation bits are, massive clutter, how the data is organized, etc amongst their seven separate subdomains with no central vision fared less well from a "can I navigate this site easily" perspective.
Now, OK, screen resolution - I can see your point. But doing quick comparisons on my 17" laptop screen and my 22" external screen between Microsoft and Apple, I gotta say, I like the way Apple just throws a couple of quick images at me and breaks their product line and common actions down quickly for me.
One place to buy: "Store",
Product line breakdown: "Mac", "iPod", "iPhone", etc.
and a few common actions: "Downloads", "Support"
Microsoft's banner is "Windows", "Office", "All Products", "Buy Now", "Downloads&Trials", "Partner Solutions", "Security", "Training", "Support", and "About".
"Windows" and "Office" are product lines. What is "All Products"? "Buy Now" is an action, not a product line. The rest of the categories are a continued mixed bag of products, types of customers, and actions. There are too many of them, they are poorly sorted.
Then this is overlaid with an annoying popover about upgrading my IE (I'm running Firefox for this test, but the same thing happened on IE6), and a relatively cluttered batch of what I'm sure are important marketing messages and stuff, but are unlikely to be relevant to me on a home page. When I click on "Office", you can tell me about the latest Office, I don't need a marketing blurb about it cluttering up the home page thanks.
Don't get me wrong, I have an iPod and I rarely use it, and I'm a Windows user (that an Linux, but it's been many moons since I fired up a MacAnything). But Apple's web site is simpler, cleaner, and far more consistent.
Trying to find the Microsoft logo on their various sites is like playing "Where's Waldo" when Waldo keeps changing his shirt color and can move while you're looking for him (and sometimes he's hidden by a pop-over ad).
I love popovers. I fill mine with ice cream. But I detest them on websites. Microsoft: I'm already on your site! You don't need to sell me, you need to give me information!
(end rant)
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go to get QuickTime
Go to get QuickTime, and when you run it, find the good UI grounds to a halt.
To be honest I'm not bothered about whether Apple's or Microsoft's website is less crap, when they're both awful compared to many other websites, and I hardly ever visit them. I'm more concerned about the applications I run.
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. Microsoft might seem a bit more cluttered. But wh
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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 spa
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:What browser? (Score:4, Insightful)
I'd like to know what browser and what computer he was using. In other words: what bias if any?
...because every time something microsoft/apple is better than apple/microsoft there must either be some bias or fanboisim, because everyone knows that microsoft/apple is always best at everything.
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Who cares about the browser. Microsoft and Apple are two very different companies. Apple has a much smaller product line then Microsoft. Also Apple is almost completely B2C. Microsoft has a huge product line of software B2B, B2C and Government. Server, Client, Thin Client, etc... The Microsoft site has a tons of stuff on it. Apple has much less.
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How do you get to it from the main site?
Re:Could size have anything to do with it? (Score:5, Insightful)
That's kind of the point of the article, actually. You don't get there directly from the home page, and that's the correct behavior for 90% or more of the people who land there. Just because you have a division or resource that is of interest to a small subset of your users doesn't mean it needs front page space.
In answer to your specific question, type 'developer' into their search box. You get an incredibly handy list of common results pre-filled in a drop down list, and actually submitting the search yields a bevy of results. Maybe it's the generally terrible in-site searching of sites around the net and the relative awesomeness of Google that has trained people to not even try, but Apple's site search is pretty good.
I've learned over the years, however, that pretty much anything you want from an Apple web site can be found by typing 'apple/foo' in your location bar. Your browser will autofill the 'apple' to 'www.apple.com' and Apple maps all of their resources to the first part of the path - even if it ends up redirecting you to 'foo.apple.com' in the end. So, try 'apple/quicktime' or 'apple/developer' (or 'safari', or 'macosx' or 'iphone', etc). Very handy.
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Sorry, their search is appalling. If you want to go to "View all search results", it takes me to a page with no results, just a search window. I hit enter again, in case it needs it (bad UI, as I've already said I wanted all results), wait absolutely ages for it to load, and then still get no results. What's going on? I tried it a bit later, and it worked, but it only seems to work about 50% of the time. If something went wrong, there's no error message - again, fundamentally bad UI mistakes.
I've learned ov
Re:I suggest the problem is... (Score:4, Funny)
Kinda silly - I only run Pirate Versions of Windows, and I've NEVER had one disab