Building Portals, Intranets, and Corporate Web Sites Using Microsoft Servers

Look-and-Feel

Like all computer programs that interact with human beings, portals have a look-and-feel or user interface (UI). Indeed, the wellspring of portals is the need for improved user interfaces for content and applications. If organizations used consistent design standards for all their applications, they would already have much of the feel of a portal, just as Microsoft has done with its products. But, alas, most organizations have not taken a consistent approach to user interface over the long term. They have yielded to the desire for progress in interface design for each subsequent application and to the whims of individual developers.

The overriding feeling that users should experience in a portal is unity. That is, the users should ...