Today, the dramatically revised Microsoft Learning Web site went live. It took over eight months to review, compress and and rewrite over 900 pages. The result site has less than 150 tabbed pages.

My role included:

• Developing the strategy for how to revamp the content
• Designing the templates, which included tabs, introductory sections, tables and other user-centric elements
• Helped develop the initial site map and navigation based on analyzing how the pages could be compressed
• Oversaw the revision of over 100 of the pages; wrote 50 pages myself
• Created nearly 30 thumbnails (images)
• Collaborated with dozens of people; managed four vendors who helped write and edit the pages along with enter them in a content management system
• Created numerous spreadsheets and presentations
• Agonized over the user experience and made quite a few last minute navigation changes

Above is a screen capture of the Certifications Benefits page, featuring tabs, related link boxes, tables, nifty thumbnail and introductory paragraph, and a wonderful color scheme.

Now that the site is live, and I’m two weeks short of being at Microsoft for two years (how time flies), I can start looking for my next opportunity to make a difference… hopefully, not revising a  900-page Web site!