Microsoft Student website

Business challenge:

Connecting with college students is important for Microsoft business—current and future—both in terms of product sales and of recruitment. To make this connection, the Microsoft Student Audience team wanted a portal home page that was fun, engaging, cool, and non-corporate. They wanted to surprise the student audience with an irreverent, humorous approach to products and services. The team also needed something that was well outside the traditional consumer- or developer-oriented focus and something that was filtered for students and their unique take on how they use Microsoft products to learn, work, and play.

The Microsoft Student Audience team wanted the new home page to be developed on CSP, the powerful, cutting-edge content-management and web-publishing platform developed by Microsoft, and the team needed it to be easy to maintain and update, but not restricted by any limitations imposed by CSP.

Microsoft challenged Resources Online and its partner UI Architects to design and develop a new home page and to extend their previous student site, drawing on our design skills and expertise with CSP.

Challenge met.

Resources Online and UI Architects developed a student home page that is fun, engaging, and easy to use—all within the CSP platform. Our efforts helped Microsoft win the Web Marketing Association 2010 WebAward for Outstanding Website in recognition of this site, garnering excellent marks in:

• Design
• Innovation
• Content
• Technology
• Interactivity
• Copywriting
• Ease of use

Resources Online and UI Architects provide ongoing design assistance and maintenance for the site, which consists of more than 50 pages and serves as a student portal with links to other Microsoft content. We also managed the localization of the site for more than a dozen locales. Our design talents, web management skills, and expertise in using CSP assist us in providing Microsoft with a website that continues to engage—and surprise—college students around the world.