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Call for Input: A New Look for the Partner Portal Homepage

Work has started on a long-overdue overhaul of the Microsoft Partner Portal homepage and we are looking for input from the community as we finalize the design. 

Our objectives in this redesign include:

  • Creating a cleaner, improved experience for partners.
  • Making it easier to find the important information and tools to drive your business.
  • Greater flexibility in the layout to support additional media types, like video and Silverlight presentations
  • Content tailored to a visitor's needs (example: job role, company type, new users, etc)

This week we are posting out the early design images for you to review and comment on, while we complete the coding on a live prototype of the page.  We will have the prototype available for additional feedback next week. Beyond just your general comments, we are particularly interested in your answers to the following questions:

  • What catches your eye first?
  • What would be the most useful thing on this page, for you?
  • What would you usually be trying to do, if you came to the Partner Portal homepage?
  • Would this page enable you to get closer to that goal?
  • Why, or why not?

Feel free to leave your feedback as comments to this post.  We'll be responding and capturing your input so we can continue to improve this design.

 Now, on to the show-n-tell.

Homepage Concept Sketch

Thumbnail of homepage sketch

This is the initial concept sketch for the new MSPP Portal design we are developing for release in June 2009. (Click to see full image)

Link list Detail

Detail image of the link list area

The link list area in the top-right of the home page is intended to give you easy access to the resources that are used most on the site.  The design also allows for easy contextual search directly from this area.

In-line Multimedia

Detail image

The design includes the ability to view video and multimedia presentations directly from the homepage--placing the key highlights and information within easy reach. Videos can also be viewed in full-screen mode. 

Partner Resource Syndication

Detail of syndication area

Important resources from other Microsoft Partner Program sites can be highlighted directly on the homepage.  As new relevant information is published the highlights will be available directly from this page.

There are more details to come as we get closer to June.  We are looking forward to your feedback!

Published Thursday, March 05, 2009 5:31 PM by Jon Whisler

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# http://twitter.com/mspartner

Thursday, March 05, 2009 7:18 PM by TrackBack

# re: Call for Input: A New Look fceoor the Partner Portal Homepage

Link to msdn downloads & activations once logged in.  Highest usage of all in our company.  Thx. Lee

Monday, March 09, 2009 6:05 AM by Lee Blackstone

# re: Call for Input: A New Look for the Partner Portal Homepage

As a partner, I think, my most common purpose of visit to Partner portal is to get to know about latest sales and marketing campaigns. That should somehow be highlighted. How about partner success stories available so that we know what other partners are doing in the same space?

Monday, March 09, 2009 5:05 PM by Atul T

# re: Call for Input: A New Look for the Partner Portal Homepage

Definitely heading in the right direction - would love to see an overhaul of the Membership Center also.  Still feels like a fairly heavy, clunky user interface and there is a lot of room for improvement.

Friday, March 13, 2009 2:33 PM by Ryan

# re: Call for Input: A New Look for the Partner Portal Homepage

@ Atul and @Lee Thanks for the usage details.  We've logged your comments w/ for the content team.

@Ryan - Love clarification on what feels clunky and heavy in this design for you. We are looking at Membership Center for future work as well.

Thanks- Jon

Friday, March 13, 2009 3:07 PM by Jon Whisler

# re: Call for Input: A New Look for the Partner Portal Homepage

The design is wasteful for real estate in the screen height direction.

I'm looking at this on a 15" widescreen laptop (not that uncommon a configuration I'd guess) --800px high-- and the only thing visible that could qualify as content is the top article and the title of the second. The 4-tier header/menu structure and the image, which doesn't seem to serve any purpose except aestethics, take up two thirds of the available screen height.

For the record, the current homepage doesn't fare that much better, but at least the articles summaries and links are way more condensed and do not each have their own graphic as well, so that there are a bunch of them visible.

Friday, March 20, 2009 4:23 PM by Filip Van Raemdonck

# re: Call for Input: A New Look for the Partner Portal Homepage

This new design seems pretty sharp to me. It's the membership center which I think is clunky.  

Monday, March 23, 2009 4:59 PM by Ryan

# re: Call for Input: A New Look for the Partner Portal Homepage

I  agree the top portion is overly focused on esthetics at the expense of content, I prefer scrolling kept to a minimum whenever possible; carpal tunnel, inefficient mousing, etc. Maybe the real estate concentation is why the orange really ppops to me, it is the first thing that catches my eye. I really like the effect of fades in the banner components.

Thursday, May 28, 2009 7:09 PM by Jean

# re: Call for Input: A New Look for the Partner Portal Homepage

Oh one more thing, please, please, reduce the number of open windows required to get to a document. Not every link on every page has to open in a separate window just to lead to one more window to download the object of the chase. Thanks!

Thursday, May 28, 2009 7:13 PM by Jean

# re: Call for Input: A New Look for the Partner Portal Homepage

@Jean thanks for your comments.  We've worked on limiting the creation of new windows and we are continueing to work on driving the most important resources to the top of the page to help reduce the need to scroll down.  These changes will start to the rollout live in mid-June and continue to adjust through mid-July.

Monday, June 01, 2009 1:17 PM by Jon Whisler

# re: Call for Input: A New Look for the Partner Portal Homepage

Looking at the number of links on that main page, assuming hyperlinks are blue, shows that navigation will still be a stumbling block for the partner portal. It appears the descriptive text has gotten thinner while the number of links have grown. This will cause users to have to "test click" a link to see if the content they expect is on the other side of it. The site density creates a difficult UI navigation problem to solve, but I do not think this design does it. Think of how you used the ribbon bar on Office 2007 to solve those menu problems. This is a similar problem. Add some hover-over Silverlight preview, a ribbon bar and I think it can be much better.

Wednesday, June 10, 2009 10:42 PM by Jim Begley

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