Windows Live ID: April, 2006

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New sign-in UI.. it's alive!

Today we are rolling out a new sign-in experience for Windows Live sites like Live.com, Ideas, Mail, Expo, Favorites and Custom Domains. This is the next step in our Windows Live ID deployment.

When our team first started working on Windows Live ID, we were really excited because it gave us an opportunity to rethink the sign-in experience. In the past, signing in has been cumbersome for users. The user knows that they are who they say they are, but they have to prove it by remembering an ID and password and typing them in. When you have a service that operates at such large scale as Windows Live ID, delaying users even a few seconds with a poor experience can result in a net loss of thousands of hours wasted across the world per year. We take the responsibility to deliver a good sign-in experience very seriously.

You can see the following improvements to the Windows Live sign-in experience today:

Clean and simple: The first thing you may notice about the Windows Live sign-in page is that it is a very clean, simple experience. Our goal here was to strip any non-essential information off the page so that there is nothing to distract users from the process of signing in.

Consistent: We had a great opportunity to do this with Windows Live because Windows Live web sites have a common look and feel. The page will have the same clean format no matter what Windows Live site you visit.

Fast: Another advantage of the clean, simple experience is that it is very fast. Our goal is to get you through this page as fast as possible, so you can get on with your life and read your e-mail :). We’ve measured the page load time to be reduced by more than 50%!

Finally, you don’t need to sign up for a new account to sign in to Windows Live sites. You can use your existing Hotmail, MSN, or Passport account.

This new sign-in UI you'll see today isn't the last thing you'll see from the Windows Live ID team -- more innovative features are coming! Next week we’ll have more information from more members of our team on how the sign-in UI was implemented as well as more exciting features you’ll see in the coming months in the sign-in experience for Windows Live.

- Lynn Ayres, Mark Wong, Trevin Chow, Erren Lester, Brian Perrin and Brian Kramp

Windows Live ID deployment

Question #1: What service has over 300 million users and does nearly a billion authentications per day?

Answer: Windows Live ID!

Question #2: What service is being deployed right under your nose, while still maintaining its stellar availability?

Answer: Windows Live ID!

That's right, we’re nearly complete with our deployment of the Windows Live ID service! It's a good thing that you haven’t noticed, otherwise we would have been in serious trouble since it would have meant something went wrong :)

The first thing to point out is that all the sign-ins will start going to our new URL, which is login.live.com. The second thing is that you'll notice in the footer of our "classic" sign-in UI are the words "Windows Live ID" :)

Our new sign-in experience that I've mentioned before will begin to light up over the next week or so at partners like Live Mail, Expo and www.live.com. In fact, Lynn Ayres, one of the PMs on our team responsible for user experience and design of the new Windows Live ID Sign-in UI will be blogging very soon on this very topic in the next few days.

Stay tuned for more info!

-Trevin Chow, Lead Program Manager

Windows Live ID whitepaper

Fresh off the press on MSDN is our whitepaper on the Windows Live ID service. This is a great primer on Windows Live ID, how it is positioned within the Identity Metasystem and what you can look forward to in the future with respect to the platform.

Some excerpts to wet your appetite:

"The Windows Live ID service is the next-generation version of a system that does over 22 billion authentications per month and is used to access a large set of online services operated by Microsoft and its close partners"

"The current plan is that Windows Live ID will support both self-issued and third-party managed [InfoCards] as a mechanism to authenticate users when accessing Windows Live services. Subsequently, Windows Live ID will also issue managed cards to enable users to use their Windows Live ID with third parties."

"To simplify integration on both the server side and the client side, the Windows Live ID service will release software development kits (SDKs) later this year. In addition, the Windows Live ID service uses industry standard protocols. For cloud server-to-server scenarios, the Windows Live ID service exposes programmatic interfaces by way of SOAP services."

Whitepaper: http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnlive/html/winliveidserv.asp

-Trevin Chow, Lead Program Manager

The beginning of Windows Live ID

Welcome to the Windows Live ID team blog! This is our inaugural “Hello World!” post to introduce Windows Live ID.

Windows Live ID is the upgrade/replacement for the Microsoft Passport service and is the identity and authentication gateway service for cross-device access to Microsoft online services, such as Windows Live, MSN, Office Live and Xbox Live. Is this the authentication service for the world? No :-) It's designed for use with Microsoft online services and by Microsoft-affiliated close partners who integrate with Windows Live services to offer combined innovations to our mutual customers. We will continue to support the Passport user base of 300+ Million accounts and seamlessly upgrade these accounts to Windows Live IDs. Partners who have already implemented Passport are already compatible with Windows Live ID.

Windows Live ID is being designed to be an identity provider among many within the Identity Metasystem. In the future, we will support Federated identity scenarios via WS-* and support InfoCards.

For developers we will be providing rich programmable interfaces via server and client SDKs to give third party application developers access to authenticated Microsoft Live services and APIs.

Over the next few weeks as we complete our deployment, you will see the Windows Live ID service come alive through our respective partners sites and services. The first thing you’ll notice as early as today is that the word Passport is being replaced by Windows Live ID. But it isn't a rebranding exercise -- there is stuff going on under the hood. This will be more understandable in the coming weeks and months when you start seeing the new, exciting Windows Live sign-in UI. Not only is the page load time significantly reduced, but you will see some really cool innovative features that we’re sure you’ll love :)

What do you need to do as a consumer? Nothing! Just keep logging into your Windows Live and MSN services as you normally do. Or try out some new ones at ideas.live.com.

We'll be sharing more about Windows Live ID here as it rolls out...for all those interested in identity and authentication service, come on back. And let us know what you think!

-Trevin Chow, Lead Program Manager