Upcoming improvements to the Azure AD sign-in experience

[Kelvin Xia]

We’d like to give you an early heads up on some visual design updates that are coming to the Azure AD sign-in experience. Customers gave us a LOT of feedback last time we updated the sign-in. It was clear that you wanted us to provide more notification, earlier in the process with more information. We’ve learned and this time we’re giving you more time and info than ever before.

Our next set of changes aims to reduce clutter and make our screens look cleaner. A visually simpler UI helps users focus on the task at hand – signing in. This is solely a visual UI change with no changes to functionality. Existing company branding settings will carry forward to the updated UI. There will be no change to SSO or "Keep me signed in functionality".

Read more about the changes in the Enterprise Mobility & Security blog.

[#2]

Hello,

Are you planning to provide in other language the UI login experience comparison?

We currently have french users that would like to have a compare between the current and the new login experience.

Let me know

[#3]

I think it is a travesty about how much hassle we have to go through on a home networked business computer to login every single time. We are presented with screens that show the show the login for a moment at the password screen then show the actual password dots.   When the software logs us out, I then have to retype in the MS login web address to get back to a login screen.  This is for a home network business computer, running Windows 10 pro and windows server 2012 on our server.  You are making us do more and more work to login not less. I understand the security concerns but all of this with the login screen is just rubbish and a waste of time.  The threat such as it is is internet based. It is not local in my office. I understand logging out after the computer is unused for a period of time, but it should be a reasonable time, so as to prevent someone from breaking in to our home when away and then trying to log in to the computer.   Please think about sharing these changes with end users  first to get their opinion before rolling this out. Did you ever thing about asking us via a survey what we think as end users.  The user experience is not great and is getting worse.  The changes proposed look like they are going to impose an even greater work burden on end users before being able to do usable work.   The Office login now brings us to the MS office home not the outlook mail page, which is what we want. We then have to click on outlook and then wait for another tab to load. Once that tab loads, it now takes another minute before being able to see the actual text of emails not just the subject line and the sender.   With each iteration this becomes more of a pain to login.   Sooner or later someone is going to come in and design a clean fresh secure office interface as a layer over MS Office or even a replacement for it, and people will pay money for that just to avoid all of the hassles that you are now creating for them.  Even with fast connections the Office 365 apps load slower than desktop versions.  You are straying far away from meeting user needs.

[#4]

Please come up with a solution to this problem:  When I try to check-in to technical support, it asks for my password.  Well, in this case, that is why I need tech service.  I've lost my password for my Outlook 365 email program.  And when I go to the page where I'm suppose to go, it says that I don't exist.  I assure you that I do exist, have been a customer for decades, and am a current "365" customer, but you won't let me get to a website where I can prove it.

[#5]

Whilst being notified of upcoming UI changes is *obviously* the right thing to do, can we please have the "Change Notification Banner" properly dismissible ?

If I hit [X], I just want it gone, period.

Seeing this every time I log in is irritating at best, and the experience is worse when signing-in on mobile. Screen real estate for the latter is at a premium, please don't waste it with a banner that I've seen & read every day since it went live....

[#6]

Will the forthcoming ADFS theming provide a way to disable the fade-in of the high-res background picture?  When accessing inside a Citrix connection, this fade results in the whole session becoming unresponsive for some time as all of those screen updates are made.

[#7]

I'd opt for a different photo. It's unpleasant to see that every morning. It looks like a snapshot of Mordor.

[#8]

So, I thought this was just an update to the look?

With the new 'preview' UI I am constantly challenged to log on (again and again and again and ...) to O365 (web site) and MS apps, and presented ONLY with my Windows login name.
I go to the O365 web page and see my O365 account. "Hello, Welcome Back funky dude" it welcomes while presenting my O365 account and a Sign In button. I click.
Then :(
The UI presents two options for me to sign in with my windows account and one with my Windows email address. Where is my O365 sign in option. So, then I click and have to key it in to a blank dialogue box (my O365 name is not remembered in spite of being input 2 trillion times! And in spite of it being in the 'Work of School' field of my Windows account).

I'm sorry for sounding furious, it's just because I am so furious. The whole sign in technology has been so broken for years. It's becoming quite intolerable. With MS O365 and Azure I spend more time signing in than doing any other one thing. Seriously! Someone has to see the irony in calling this 'productivity' software. Surely?

[#9]

Any news on the updated ADFS templates that were supposed to be published along with this change?  We're federated and keen to keep the user experience consistent.

[#10]

A public preview of the updated ADFS template is available here: https://github.com/Microsoft/adfsWebCustomization/tree/master/centeredUi

[#11]

That’s brilliant, thank you!