FamilySearch Employee Responding to Search Page Feedback
Answers
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Split.io is the technology that we use when testing a new interface. We started by only exposing 10% of our users to the new version to test for errors. You receive this cookie when you are part of that group. To my knowledge that is the only thing, we are using Split.io for.
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Like some of the comments eluded to, this will be really valuable, and I passed along your whole comment for the team to evaluate and fix the issue. Thanks for the time and research you put into this.
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The button is working for me Windows 10. @LDS Search Test needed to install a Root Certificate to hopefully resolve the issue on his end (a problem with Chrome not loading Cloudfront CDN resources over SSL> MacOS keychain).
Feedback Description: Click on it - you will be presented with an emoji option scale (hate <-> love), then you can either give Search specific page feedback (for parameters, problems with search results, Preferences, practically the whole page will 'light up' to give you the option to 'specify' your feedback to specific problems with features) or you can give general Search site feedback (mostly UI type stuff - navigation, whitespace, tabs).
FamilySearch engineers need to get an accurate view from the user what problems are occurring. Yes, there are problems - we need to report them. They cannot fix general statements here in Community - they need specific reports through Feedback. Let's flood them with 'issues' to fix.
I don't know where the Feedback ends up - but know it's not here in the Community forum ...
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Thanks for clarifying what device type you were referring to. In my experience, there is generally a bit of a difference in the way smartphones and tablets interact with websites. So when highlighting what works and what doesn’t in situations like this it helps to be specific, as @genthusiast pointed out.
Glad to hear it’s working for you on your phone though! Any wins with the new system at this point can only be a good thing.
I second that FT hints seem to be unaffected by the update. I too focus a lot of my energy these days on cleaning up the FT and think it can be a fantastic resource if used well. I also tend to find that once a PID is well filled out, less experienced users are less likely to make erroneous additions or merges, so I consider it time well spent to promote accurate (and easily accessible) information.
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Here's the link for the search parameters that fail to find William Wilson in the 1900 census (location set to New York):
Hopefully that is helpful to familysearch programmers to figure out what is going wrong (not sure if the link I posted will work, hopefully it will).
If the 'location' is removed it finds the 1900 census record. Now if i filter by 1900 census i see the one I'm looking for on the top. It wasn't at the top yesterday. That might reflect a change made today? If so, that's a step in the right direction.
@Casey Robinson 001 - thanks for passing this feedback along to the team.
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I had been taking a break from genealogy for a bit and just discovered the new “improved” interface. It used to be better than Ancestry and I was using it a lot but now none of the filters work correctly. Until you fix this absolute disaster I won’t be contributing anything on my family tree or using this site any longer.
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I cleared the residence field entirely and I don't get the record using 'New York' as the record location. The record location fields use drop down boxes so it is spelled right for sure :)
The record location seems to be blocking the record from being found.
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Another annoying feature that I just realized is there is that the filter persists when you change search parameters. But there is no way (that i can tell) to see the filters if the search comes up empty.
That's why the post above shows 'no results found'. I had set the filter to '1900 census' on the earlier search, but now that a record is not found I cannot find the filters to turn them off and see what records exist that are not in the 1900 census.
That is not a helpful feature.
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But there is no way (that i can tell) to see the filters if the search comes up empty.
Right. We need to see the filters part of the results page even when a search returns 0 results, same as when it returns 1+ results.
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The problem with that - if I understand filters correctly - if you filter 0 results you still get 0 - If you filter 1 results - you might get 0 - it depends on what you are filtering. The search filters are different than the Search Result filters I believe.
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Either way, the user should still be able to see (and modify) the search terms and filters that have been applied.
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The Search 'filters' are the parameters and are visible. The Search Results filters might not be available for 0 and 1 Results? I don't know - just guessing...
I don't know how to do a Search to return just 1 or 2 or 10 Results to test...apparently there was a 1 Result above in the discussion.
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The new interface will take some getting used to. I have two comments:
1- Under the Preferences tab, it's not clear whether what I click affects the view on the screen or for the data download. And it was the availability of the data download that got me linked to this comment page in the first place, In the old interface, it was an easily viewed button at the top right of the results page. Now I have to click, click to find it.
2- In the old Collections tab, I was able to resort the collections, say, under birth/marriage/death into an alphabetical list so I could easily scroll to the location where I wanted to search particular record sets. It seems that the only view in the new interface is sorted by number of records in a collection in descending order with no option to easily finds, for example, all the Illinois records without having to review every line is 162 available records. That is, unless I'm missing a button to click, or another tab to click, then click to click...
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@Michael Provard , have you tried using your web browser's Search feature to pick out, say, Illinois records?
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I was referring to the 'search result' filters. They disappear if your search result + filter results in no records found. And so you can't turn off the filter to see what other records were found.
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I was referring to the 'search result' filters. They disappear if your search result + filter results in no records found. And so you can't turn off the filter to see what other records were found.
Exactly. And it is maddening! The only recourse is to start the search over again.
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I haven't run across where 'Search Results' filters make results disappear and you are unable to remove the filter. But if that happens I guess just RESET ALL and Search again. Maybe give that feedback too ...
Here's an example of one filtered result and the filters are still showing:
I'm able to close the filter and return to Search Results just fine. I cannot duplicate the issue.
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Casey,
Thank you for the detailed response to the rationale for the changes to the search pages.
I appreciate you have carried out extensive testing of the new layout. I have worked in the usability industry for over thirty years and must question how well the testing has been planned and implemented. It seems pretty clear from the responses you are getting that the new layout is not fit for purpose for the vast majority of your users who are using it for real. I therefore suspect that you have relied on poorly selected tasks for the evaluation, which basically makes the results useless. It is not simply an issue of getting used to the new layout.
Two things that strike me about many of the comments are that using the new layout requires far more scrolling than the old system. Also, many options for refining the search are hidden in non obvious places. The way in which you had to explain where they are in your initial post makes this issue clear. These are both pretty fundamental usability issues that should be obvious to any competent usability professional.
I agree that your old user interface was getting outdated, but from the many comments here it is clear that you have not yet got anywhere near producing a replacement that is satisfactory. I would suggest that you make the old interface available while you continue to improve the new version.
I would suggest regarding the current version as still in beta, but you are now getting a lot of extensive feedback that should help accelerate towards a solution that will be regarded as a genuine improvement by the majority of your users.
I hope this helps you move forward, and I look forward to using a truly improved FamilySearch.
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I hate it. I have been using FS for years. Starting doing work for 60 years. You have only made it more difficult and maddening to do family history. I am smart enough to know when someone is not in the right area and does not belong to my family without all the difficulty to see the records. And by the way, why can we not longer see births, marriages, deaths on WVculture. Even the sources I attached years ago are not longer visible to me. You have only made it unfriendly. Ancestery is now a better option. People will leave FS because of this; and I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of LDS.
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And by the way, why can we not longer see births, marriages, deaths on WVculture.
WVculture changed their URLs. This has been reported and FS are working on a bulk correction. In the meantime, the records are still accessible on WVculture directly.
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The experienced user experience would be much better if there was a setting that let us choose to have all of the options visible by default.
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There is a difference between plastic and porcelain. The old format was porcelain. It looked good. The new format is plastic and looks cheap. I am not sure why there was a need to "fix" something that was not broken. Searches for records are an awful experience with the new format.
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Wait, are we having the toilet paper roll argument?
For what it's worth, I want the advanced search box on the right. That way, when I dismiss it, text on the page doesn't move around so much.
It was a surprise; I was using Search when suddenly it changed. That was very disorienting. But now I understand how it works and I like it. Some wrong results are being returned but that isn't due to the interface; the trouble is in the underlying database, and not new. Use the right side feedback button to report weird results.
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Your new search system stinks!! It take so much time going back and forth, back and forth, etc . . . It's harder to find a last name with correct and/or incorrect spelling records. It is truly awful. It's so bad I'm ready to give up! Thanks for NOTHING with your new system in finding family history!!
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I was checking out whether the 'Alternate Name' for family members would be searched n addition to birth surnames when I noticed some of search criteria did not remain such as "FAMILY MEMBERS - FATHER, MOTHER" although I did not select the information I had previsouly entered be removed. The "Spousse" and "Other Person" were retained. Why did the system drop the "Father" and "Mother" names when I added additional search criteria in another part of the selection process and without my removing the information in these two fields?
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A few thoughts:
- It is unfortunate that the focus of interface is the inexperienced user. As a frequent user, I find it irritating that there now seems to be more clicking (much more in some cases) to accomplish the same search I would have done previously.
- Given the amount of immigration to North America since the late 1800s, why isn’t Arrival Date listed as a Life Event option for searching? It wasn’t on the old interface either though I believe I may have stumbled on it when I filtered on a particular collection. It is incredibly frustrating to use this interface to search for passenger manifest records.
- Why is it that the Collections filter no longer permits sorting in ascending or descending order? It is incredibly tedious to scroll through the the listing of sometimes over 100 individual specific collections.
- It would be nice if “Show exact search” could be set in Preferences instead of having to toggle it EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. that I search (again … wasted clicking).
- It would be nice if there were an additional filter on the Migration & Naturalization collection to allow one to select either (1) Passenger manifest records, (2) Indexed records, or (3) Naturalization records. If one is searching for a manifest, it is tedious to either scroll past all other results and it is tedious to browse through a listing of over 100 different options to select a filter.
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Do not like the changes. I prefer to browse as there are at least 30 variations of the spelling of Bieswanger. Then by browsing I can see if there is a connection to my family. The new system maybe okay for a family of Smiths; Jones etc. get the picture. Please allow browsing again. I can browse up to 1877 in Canadian collection but after that its only by name.
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I think I may be in a minority here, but my main issue here is not the search facility itself, but the fact that it can’t be collapsed out of sight, so I’m only left with half the screen, divided horizontally, to see results. On the iPad, held in portrait mode, I can see exactly three (3!) results at a time - even if I change to minimal information I only see 4 … all of which results in so much more scrolling.
What I’d really like to do is just hide (until I want to change them) those big blue blobs containing my search criteria, and similarly the boxes containing First Names, Last Name, Place and Year.
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I can't seem to find where you can sort within each collection - alpha & by census years. Where can I find that feature?
Like so many this change is hard and difficult to follow. I wanted to share with our volunteers at the FHC so they know how to help others but I'm not sure they will be happy with it either.
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You need to change the search back. I've been doing this for years and this is the worse change! I put in a date range and of course it doesn't recognize the date range and no way to reduce to just the years I'm looking for. Why are you trying to make this harder than it already is? Reminds me of change just to change and not for the sake of the users. Really poor!!!!
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