Apple vs. Microsoft

By

Teka Lee

Professor Miles
ITE 119
11 October 2012

Outline
Thesis: Apple’s website differs from Microsoft’s website in the homepage, navigation, and consistency.

I. First, Apple’s homepage differs from Microsoft’s homepage. A. Apple 1. Appearance 2. Main ad 3. Space B. Microsoft 1. Appearance 2. Main ad 3. Space C. Therefore, the differences in Apple’s and Microsoft’s homepage are significant.

II. Second, Apple’s navigation is different from Microsoft’s navigation. A. Apple 1. Appearance 2. Organization 3. Readability B. Microsoft 1. Appearance 2. Organization 3. Readability C. Therefore, the differences in Apple’s and
The text is generally small, but never too small so as to be a problem. Their headings are set in font to stand out, allowing the user to quickly get the gist of each section. Apple also makes strong use of white space to separate everything apart and adds images to make each text blurb more interesting. On a typical Microsoft page, it follows the general readability guidelines by breaking things down into small pieces of text that are easy to read. It looks a lot busier than the Apple site because there is more content on one page. Thus, navigation differs between the two.
Finally, the greatest difference in Apple and Microsoft is consistency. Consistency plays a major factor because it allows usage patterns to be developed, which means if the site has a consistent layout, the user will learn how to navigate it easily. Apple does a great job of keeping the layout consistent. All of the product pages are very similar and are structured in the same way. The whole site looks and feels the same throughout and the global navigation bar at the top is always there, on every page. In contrast, Microsoft struggles a bit when it comes to consistency. There are many different sections across Microsoft.com and they all feature their own look and feel, including their own navigation. Consequently once a user goes to various sections on Microsoft’s site, they will all look and feel like separate websites. Hence Apple and Microsoft differ in consistency.
After comparing both