Back to the home page redesign

Paul, When I saw the screenshots in this post my reaction was more or less "Gaaahh!," as they're horribly shifted to magenta, which can be a problem with screen captures (there's that color management again). But the actual page you link to is much better. I'm guessing you're going for an "azure' sort of vibe up top, which is good, though I'm not sure what the mountains are meant to convey. Sort of confuses the message for me. (BTW, did anyone else find it curious that MS named their cloud computing initiative after a word that's defined as "the color of a cloudless sky"? Maybe it's just me.) Anyway, here are a couple of totally unsolicited (and probably unwelcome) pieces of advice from a web designer: 1) the page is still way to cluttered, IMO. There is no obvious focus 2) remember that people read in an "F" shaped pattern. They'll read across the top of the page, real a little less far across the next row .down, a little less far across the next row down, and so on. So keep your most important content at the top and on the left. 3) All the copy in the center section doesn't need to be on the home page - moving it to an "About" page will unclutter things and allow you to create some white space and improve focus. 4) To me, the 195px wide rectangles you use for links to featured content are much too big, and limit what you can do graphically with the rest of the page. I'd consider using graphics that were much smaller (like a quarter the height) Otherwise, it's great ;-)

WebGuy3000 ... this is all very welcome,and i agree with all of it. In fact, that's why the home page needs to be replaced. its a mess. thanks for this.

WebGuy, I'm not seeing any magenta shift. Are you still seing it, or has it been fixed?

"I'm seeing a bit of magenta on the page itself as well as on the captures but it's way below what most people care about." The shift I see is pretty big (in my standards). People might not care about it enough to think about it but that doesn't ever really justify being sloppy. It's all communication and while not quite knowing why people might still leave the site thinking there was something wrong with it. Just like if there was of loads of typos or gif images with "transparency halos".

What ads? Oh wait...(hides AdBlock in his jacket pocket). Yeah, I like it, but those ads for...um...mascara and hairspray...just really, really get in the way. I think you should go with it in spite of all the ads that very much obscure the view.

Fascinating, webguy, thanks for clearing that up. Also, good suggestions on the website's design.

Hey Paul, I think you should keep the "page badges", those strips under the navigation bar in activity centers. They give a nice UI and atmosphere to the pages. Keep them there! As for the main header image at the top, a background of some sort would look much better than the black of what's there now. Whether there are large or small ads, it will still look good. Keep up the good work, and thanks for all the Windows 7 coverage!