Windows Developer Center Updates for 2/11/2011
This week we released a new Windows Touch whitepaper, I posted the code to this blog for one of the PDC samples showcasing best practices for Windows Touch, and I had a major facepalm when I realized the developer center could use an overhaul. The theme of the moment for the developer center content is Touch and I have been itching to do this for a while because in Windows 7, Windows Touch was my feature so I can backfill content as I see fit. I'm going to be working in the coming weeks on improving the homepage for the developer center, and as always, I love feedback so leave comments if you have suggestions for things you'd like to see fixed.
Touch Everywhere
Last week I hinted at this but In the coming weeks, I will be releasing a lot of unpublished Windows Touch content that I worked on and haven't published because I either couldn't get it out of review, didn't see it as a priority for publishing, or have been explicitly held back from publishing for coordination with other efforts. It's a great time to be developing touch applications for Windows because there are new slates out and new slates coming out and the Windows Touch API is good. Keep an eye on the Windows Developers account on twitter for content releases as they come. Also, keep an eye on the Windows Touch learning path because that's ultimately where this content will be contained.
Developer Center Homepage
I get it. The developer center as it exists today is not very friendly to developers. Where's the code? What's with all the marketing content? What do all the links mean on the page? Windows Features? Since the launch / redesign of the center, we have lost half of our visitors, and apparently there is lots of negative feedback (that I haven't seen...). I have been wringing my hair trying to figure out what the following traffic trend means:
And I am now concluding that the page just isn't on message, is full of fail, etc... I want to fix this as quickly as I can and have a few ideas for things i can do to improve the site and pages and will try and begin capturing the changes in my future blog entries. Comments / feedback help here and I will do what I can to solve issues that are mentioned to me on the blog.
Thanks for reading!
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