Microsoft has re-designed its public website with a new look. Interesting, though, that the site looks slightly different depending on which browser you use.
For instance, the top of the screen has a coloured strip with the Microsoft logo. In Firefox, this is a solid blue colour and the logo background has a visible darker blue element behind it which I’m sure you’re not supposed to see.
In Internet Explorer, this coloured strip is a graduated tint, not solid, and there’s no visible colour difference behind the logo. But the search box within that coloured strip is slightly out of alignment.
Overall, it looks better to me with Firefox than with Internet Explorer.
I wonder if the site designer(s) designed the site only with Internet Explorer in mind. That wouldn’t be unusual – plenty of websites out there don’t take into account how different browsers render web pages differently. However, I wouldn’t have expected such an approach by Microsoft, even if IE is their product.
I’ve just read an article by Stop Design about the new look. It comments on the different browser/different look aspect of the new site. It goes into a lot of detail about standards compliance, of great interest to professional website designers.