The Microsoft ISV Connector

The Microsoft Independant Software Vendor (ISV) Connector was developed as a client-facing site aimed at bringing together in one place the huge amount of information on the web that is of interest to Microsoft ISVs. The client identified four main categories to be used as the information portals, and had one homepage to direct users to the appropriate location. Each of the four individual portals contains news, articles, blogs, upcoming events, and key resources for ISVs.

With only graphic mockups of the site, Ben was given full control to break up the pages as he saw fit. In order to make the site as flexible and expandable as possible he used advanced HTML and CSS based layouts. This allowed not only for easy editing and updating of the content, but also did not limit the amount of content any column could hold. As it was a client facing site, this layout also gave 100% HTML and CSS validation by W3C standards and maximized cross-browser compatibility and search-engine crawlability.

Ben also implemented a custom CSS-based popup with a JavaScript helper to add teaser-text to select links. The helper was used to manage popup z-indexes which allowed a popup anywhere on the page without worrying about the popup running off the page or falling underneath other text.

HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Adobe Photoshop