When Windows Live announced they were going to “deprecate the existing Windows Live Contacts API and remove email addresses,” it was instantly clear that support for API access to email address had come to an abrupt halt. If there was any good news, it was that the Contacts API was not discontinued on the same day as the June 2012 announcement – but at CloudSponge we knew it was just a matter of time.
Tick tock tick tock
The old “lemon into lemonade” practice was not going to work in this case. One of the key foundations of the CloudSponge promise had been simplicity – with very light demands on the user. Now, thanks to the changes, the user was suddenly expected to do some heavy lifting, namely:
• Locating an item labeled Export on Outlook.com
• Locating the file to upload, and then uploading it
That’s a lot to ask, when contact exporting had previously been a simple one-click process. We pretty much knew that a workaround was likely going to be the best scenario while the clock was ticking on the deprecation.
Customized buttons and context-sensitive instructions
The workaround involved using the CSV import function, but making it seamless to users, so all they needed to do was click buttons instead of searching for navigation items and files. Also, knowing that every browser handles downloads a little differently, we’ve now added instructions tailored to each major browser and operating system, along with appropriate images and wording that matches the given context.
Drag-and-drop functionality onto the widget is now possible with files in most browser and OS setups, and it’s only going to get better.