Microsoft's global intranet gets a Metro UI inspired facelift

All Microsoft employees around the globe were in for a treat when Microsoft decided to upgrade the entire look of their ‘msweb’ intranet. The software giant roped in design studio ‘If/Then’ who were given the challenge to redesign the look and feel of the global corporate intranet. The result is a look heavily inspired from Microsoft’s Metro UI seen on Windows Phone 7 devices and soon on Windows 8 as well. The visual style is clean and simple with the region specific information highlighted for the specific user, wherever he may be in the world. The new design seems have been widely accepted by all the employees, as they found it ‘stunning’ and even ‘inspiring’.

A job well done!

The project took about 19 months to reach completion and we have to say that the studio have done an excellent job here. There are about 90,000 employees around the world who access this page, with 5.2 million page views a month. The studio has also ensured a strong social focus to the design, which is evident from the employee photos and a wall on which colleagues can leave messages. Now, if only Microsoft would overhaul their aging public portals and give them a more streamlined look, it’d be much appreciated. Who knows, maybe if/then.com is already working on that.