Microsoft has begun the process of making their revamped MSN homepage available to everyone. This redesign was previewed earlier in September and featured a lot of changes and improvements. Over the next couple of days, the new site will become active for over 425 million customers in 50 countries.
The new site design brings together Microsoft’s services in one place. Now with a quick rollover, users can access their recent documents, OneNote files, emails, and maps. After signing into Facebook and Twitter, you can quickly skim your news feed and recent tweets as well. All of this occurs by rolling over items in the the title bar. These rollover menus offer a quick glance at recent information without going to a different site. This makes the new MSN homepage worthy of spending time on and not just the first stop.
Personally, I have never used MSN.com daily but this new redesign is compelling. The ability to jump to my recent photos in OneDrive or open a recent Excel document is extremely convenient. Microsoft has done a great job of offering their users a tool to unify their workflow. Hopefully this will encourage customers of one service to begin trying another.
This redesign serves two big purposes. One, it is now easier and faster for current users to access the services they already use. Two, it provides a good platform for partial users to discover Microsoft’s other offerings. Now, Microsoft’s online document solution is front and center. Xbox Music is also at the top. Hopefully this will inform consumers of some of Microsoft’s great, yet lesser known services.
