IE9 Site Pinning and Jump Lists Wizard Now Live

Microsoft had already made it pretty simple for developers to make their sites feel more like Windows 7 apps when using Internet Explorer 9, by adding site pinning and Jump Lists functionality, but the company just upped the ante.

Devs can now head over to BuildMyPinnedSite.com and expand the user experience for their sites in just a few minutes.

They need to look for the “Design it for me” option, in order to add pinning and Jump Lists to their site.

Microsoft’s Justin Garrett promises that the entire process will last approximately five minutes, and the fact of the matter is that it could not be simpler, especially with the online wizard that the company is offering.

“For developers, designers, or a blogger with a day job, the Pinning Wizard takes about 5 minutes. Add your logo and site links. The Pinning Wizard generates one-line of code that you can copy/paste into your HTML and immediately make available to your customers,” Garrett reveals.

The wizard guides developers through every step of the process of designing a pinned site, starting with the creation of a high resolution favicon.

Adding Jump Lists is really simple, as is the introduction of Dynamic Jump List and Notifications and of pinning discovery. Some components are optional, but still available to devs that want to provide visitors to their site with a richer experience.

The Wizard will build one line of JavaScript tailored to a specific site, and developers need only paste the code in their site’s HTML.

“Pinned Sites are a set of features in Internet Explorer 9 that help make the websites that you build more interactive. Notifications pull your customers in from outside the browser. Users click once and your website launches like an app - your latest and best content gets noticed,” Garrett notes.

“The result is an average of 50% more engagement from users that pin - this is why almost 40,000 top ranked sites have already done so.”

Windows Internet Explorer 9 RTW for Windows 7 and Windows 7 SP1 is available for download here.