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On My Rather Horrible Experience Signing Up for Hotmail

As I am interviewing for an SDET (tester) position with the Windows Live Communications team, I decided I should take a look at the tools the team was creating before my interview. So I attempted to sign up for a Windows Live (Hotmail) account; which was probably a mistake. The first time I did it I just gave up, then decided this was a great opportunity to document a problem, so I took some screenshots and decided to use Windows Live Writer to blog about it, and I can document it here, and hopefully tell someone at my interviews about this. Yes, to some extent, hopefully this is impressive and whatever, but frankly I think it just needs to be fixed. [edited to add: As I made this I noticed the feedback links. I’ll mash on that if I don’t mention this at my interview.]

A note: this may be a bit irreverent, just because I’m submitting this as a user—if I found this as a tester, I’d file a bug report, not a rant.

I have documented the page with copious screenshots. You may note that these screenshots were taken in Safari in OS X. Yes, I am a Mac user, and yes, I expect your websites to work in a non-IE browser on a non-Windows platform. I understand it’s “Windows Live” and all, and thus some pieces should be Windows-only, but not other web-based pieces.

So, I go to the Hotmail page and click “sign in”.

I get directed to a Windows Live signin page—okay, I have one of those things, I recognize that icon, that’s a Microsoft passport! I try my old Passport and it definitely lets me log in, and then I get this lovely page:

Okay, that makes sense. I have an old Passport ID that wasn’t linked to an email address; so I click on the link and expect some “let’s create an email address and link it to your current account” thing. What do I get instead?

Okay, there are several things wrong with this picture. First, the website tried to log me out without telling me. Why the frak would it log me out ten seconds after I carefully logged in? However, more concerning in my opinion is the fact that I wasn’t actually logged out, that Windows Live couldn’t even LOG ME OUT! Reading the message and because I’m a computer-savvy guy, I realize it’s due to a cookie setting I have in my browser which I believe was there by default and which no other website on the web has ever complained about. Really, Microsoft, do you want me to change my security settings because I get a pretty little website that looks like it’s from Microsoft and it tells me to? Is this what you want to train your users to do?

So, I grumble, change my browser settings just for Windows Live and move on. I get to this page.

 

Hey, hey, hey, I already have an account! I try clicking on the link, and it just sends me back to step one, so I finally decide that apparently my current account isn’t “good enough” for Windows Live and I need a new one. (Also fun note: Check out the CAPATCHA; isn’t that readable?)

So I finally create an account, and I get a hotmail account, which is actually pretty nice-looking. Then I poke around the account settings and see if there’s some way to merge accounts, and I find a way to “link” accounts. Seems like computer-science speak more than person-speak, but I’ll take any feature I can get, and I guess it’s more flexible. I get to this screen.

So I attempt to link my account—I link in my new ID:

and I get this page asking me to verify my birth year and something else. So I do that, and it takes me right back to a “link an account” page:

 

(okay, so that’s the same screenshot. I didn’t expect a problem and didn’t take screenshots, sosumi) with no comment on whether my account linking was successful or unsuccessful. I would generally assume it was successful, but I have a hunch that it didn’t work so I try it again, and then I get another page which clearly shows me or lets me know that it worked that time.

Good to know that if it finally worked. Now let’s go over and see if there’s a place I can blog about this; so I go to my profile page and notice that there’s this little ‘notes’ section which looks somewhat like a Facebook wall. Let’s try putting something there so my profile looks more lived in.

Whoa, suddenly according to my “What’s new” section, I’m “No name”. Interesting, a bug. It fixed itself when I reloaded/added another note, but it was still freaky.

That’s my story. Now, the MS Careers website can’t place “Yes/No” buttons, doesn’t work in Safari, and can’t get my name to be correct, but that’s a story for another time.

[edit: And there are issues regarding linked accounts--they don't seem very well 'linked', perhaps this is on purpose. I can't edit this from my OTHER account; I thought I'd have one "primary" account and "subsidiary" accounts, but they all seem to be independent; which is really confusing; because for example I'm not friends with myself, even though I linked our accounts. I got "No Name" again when I checked something, but I think it's because this linked account doesn't have a name?]