Hi, I’m Allison O’Mahony, lead program manager on the Windows Live Customer Experience team. My team works on all of the common experiences that you see throughout the newly released Windows Live web services. 

As your online experiences are becoming increasingly complex with multiple e-mail and IM accounts to manage, and multiple sites to keep track of your friends and the content you care about, the Windows Live team has been working to help you bring them all together, with features such as the home page, the “What’s new” list, and the ability to add web activities and contacts from outside Windows Live. 

We’ve also focused on ensuring you can easily find and use all of our web services. We created a set of consistent ways to get things done no matter where you are on Windows Live. For example, we created the common header that you see throughout the Windows Live website, and other common elements like themes, options, and what’s new, so that whether you are using Windows Live for e-mail or for photos, all of the interactions will be similar and easy to use.

Here are a few of the areas that our team has worked hard on improving for this release.

Header and navigation - With the new release we’ve updated the header that appears across the top of most Windows Live webpages.  For those of you familiar with previous versions of Windows Live, you’ll find that the navigation has evolved from one that included just a few services like Hotmail and Spaces, to one that is organized around all the many ways you can use Windows Live to connect with people you know. So the new header has links to Home, Profile, People (which now includes all of your contacts from Hotmail, Spaces, and Messenger), Mail, and Photos, plus (under “More”), Calendar, Events, Spaces, Groups and SkyDrive.  By bringing your profile, contacts, and calendar out of Spaces and Hotmail, and giving them their own links in the navigation, you should find it easier than ever to communicate and share with people you know.

In addition to links to your Windows Live services, the header also provides access to MSN content such as Autos, Money, and Music along with the ability to search the web with Live Search.  In the upper-right corner, once you sign in to Windows Live, you’ll see your picture and name along with links to your account and related options.

You may also notice that we’ve removed the ad from the top of most pages! (Note: it will take some time for this change to make it to all pages.) This helps maintain the navigation and sign-in links in a consistent location at the top of all pages, so you can always find them. 

Home page - Windows Live Home (home.live.com) has been redesigned to look clean, simple, and light. You will see the same look consistently applied to all services across Windows Live. The home page continues to be the “front door” for Windows Live, providing you with a quick view of all your Windows Live activity at a glance, and a great place to start anything you want to do on Windows Live.  We’ve also made significant changes to the layout and the types of content that appear on this page. While we continue to give prominence to your inbox, home.live.com now lights up with the pulse of your social network, the latest headlines, and even a few of your personal photos.

What’s new - By placing the what’s new list prominently on key “front door” pages such as Home, Profile, and Photos, we wanted to make it easy to keep track of what is happening with the people you care about most. And because you and your friends can now add web activities from outside Windows Live, you can get an even more complete picture of what the people in your network have been up to lately. 

On the home page, the what’s new list shows recent updates from people in your network and group that you’re a member of. Updates include activities from across Windows Live, including changes to blogs, favorite things, lists, photos, Messenger status, and even games played in Messenger.  You can change what sorts of updates appear here by clicking Options at the bottom of the what’s new list.

On other pages like Photos and Profile, the what’s new list is limited to the updates that relate to that page, so on your profile, it shows all updates about you, and on the Photos page, it shows all updates to photos from anyone who is sharing their photos with you.

MSN - Windows Live has partnered with MSN to deliver headline, entertainment and other news on the home page and relevant content to other key pages such as Photos.  While Windows Live helps you stay in touch with “your world” – the people you know, and things you do on Windows Live, the addition of news helps create a place where you can also stay in touch with what’s happening in the rest of the world.

Photos – Most people love to look at and share photos, so we’ve added a place at the top of the home page for you to display up to 4 of your favorite photos. You can add and edit photos in the header (just under your profile picture) which will display in a mini slide show when you sign in.  You will also see thumbnail photos from people you know who shared photos with you in the what’s new list. 

Daily weather and other notifications - At the top of the home page is a new notifications area designed to help you keep on top of your day. There you’ll find today’s date and weather conditions in your location, as well as notifications of new private messages, network invitations, and the next event on your calendar. During special events such as your birthday you may see a personal message here too.    

Customization - You can customize your home page by clicking Options (now located in the upper-right on all pages) and then click Customize this page. You can re-arrange the items shown on each side of the home page, change your weather location, change the number of items displayed in your inbox and what’s new, and (depending on your regional settings) you may also be able to add additional headlines.

Themes – New themes allow you to customize your experience throughout Windows Live. Click Options and then click More themes to choose from twelve standard themes that apply different designs to the header. You can also choose from several dynamic themes, which change their design based on the time of day and weather conditions—some of them even offer a special birthday surprise. 

For example, here we have the Daisy theme on a typical rainy morning in Seattle, so there are rain clouds and Daisy is wearing her raincoat and galoshes. 

That is a brief look inside some of the updated features of the Windows Live web experience. We are excited to share this new release with you, and we hope we’ve made it easier for you to connect to the people, photos, files, and content that you care about most.

- Allison