Looks like Microsoft is the latest to be guilty of a failed redesign. Their current homepage iteration sports a table-based layout circa 1998.They've also released a beta preview of their new new homepage - which you can view only with Internet Explorer. (When I attempted to view the preview site in Firefox, I was simply redirected to the existing homepage.) The preview site appears to use semantic markup, although the source has been compacted down to only a few lines, so it's nearly impossible to read. And with no Web Developer extension in IE, outlining all block-level elements (or all table cells) isn't an option.
Funny that with the IE 7 team touting how standards-compliant the new browser will be, the Microsoft homepage flies in the face of standards. (Is that for-real ironic or only Alanis ironic?) Having worked for a few large corporations, I understand that one department's products can appear to be the antithesis of another department's, with the worker bees in both departments being none the wiser. Still, this is pretty egregious, given the emphasis Microsoft claims to be placing on web standards.
Although... we've been there before with Microsoft, haven't we? Perhaps these things are cyclical.
1. I think this is a rather novel approach for a website with so much content. The thumbnail views of each mini-site is a cute idea. Now, the blurring of the content behind the pop-up divs is a little weak and would probably be better as a light-box type grey-out, but the idea is sound.
I do, however, have a hard time accepting a post like this that criticizes a beta product for not supporting a particular browser. Anyone can see there is some very high level scripting on that page and I'm sure it would take some additional work to make that work cross-browser and cross-platform. I know that it is easy to rip Microsoft (and even I feel strange here defending them), but there is nothing wrong with a.) supporting their own product (i.e., Internet Explorer) first and b.)not offering full browser support in an unreleased product. Heck, it is common for Google to release web apps that work in only a small share of browsers only to add additional compatibility post-launch. How about we cut them some slack and praise a unique idea with interesting execution.
Also, there IS a web developer extention for IE. It is also in beta but you can get it here: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=e59c3964-672d-4511-bb3e-2d5e1db91038&displaylang=en
I has many of the best features of the famous Firefox plug-in plus a few others.
Lastly, I find the last paragraph a little troubling. I've seen very little evidence of the author's assertion of "emphasis Microsoft claims to be placing on web standards". Where have they been emphasizing this? It certainly isn't on the product page. I know there has been some development towards better CSS support and fixing of some bugs, but I think that hardly qualifies as emphasis.
Posted at 2:17PM on Jul 28th 2006 by JZ