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Community Upgrade Coming in November

Mark McLemore
Mark McLemore admin
October 4, 2021 edited August 28, 2023 in Community News

Greetings Friends,

Thank you for being part of the FamilySearch Community. 

Over the past several months we've gathered feedback from users about the community experience. We are pleased to announce that FamilySearch is planning to release an upgrade to the community on Nov 1st 2021. We will share more information soon, but here are a few key elements of the upgrade:

  • Simplified site navigation with a focus on key resources.
  • New features and functionality.
  • Improved processes to streamline how FamilySearch interacts with community members.

Watch for more information about the changes soon.

FamilySearch

24

Comments

  • tyams
    tyams ✭✭✭
    October 6, 2021

    After the last efforts to "simplify" and "streamline" an element of FamilySearch, I'm a little nervous. For the sake of the engineers who work hard to implement this, as well as the end users, I hope that these changes got more input from real users and less from outside strategists than the efforts to "improve" the search interface did. While a "busy" screen is not always initially welcoming, a simplified screen with more than 50% white space, but reduced utility is off-putting for good.

    16
  • Julia Szent-Györgyi
    Julia Szent-Györgyi ✭✭✭✭✭
    October 6, 2021

    Yeah, what tyams said: I hope the designers and programmers keep in mind that if it's not visible, it doesn't exist.

    Now, if "simplify" and "streamline" mean combining Q and A and Ideas, and getting rid of most of the categories, then I'm all for it.

    5
  • Mark McLemore
    Mark McLemore admin
    October 6, 2021
    https://community.familysearch.org/en/discussion/comment/382776#Comment_382776

    Hi @tyams & @Julia Szent-Györgyi,

    Thanks for providing your perspective and feedback. The adjustments we have planned for the community were largely based on feedback from individuals in the community. Obviously, there are many factors we had to consider, but both the problems people reported with using the community & the feedback collected on how we could improve the community experience drove the majority of the changes planned for November 1st.

    Best,

    Mark

    3
  • Marcela Gálvez
    Marcela Gálvez ✭✭
    October 14, 2021 edited October 14, 2021

    Mark McLemore Me alegra mucho saber que están pensando en una actualización, sin embargo, hay personas cuyas voces no se toman en cuenta porque no son tan hábiles con la tecnología, y si no pueden trabajar mucho con su árbol, mucho menos sabrán ingresar a los sitios de comunidad para escribir sus quejas o sus consultas. Si algún día logran colocar una pregunta, difícilmente lograrán volver al sitio para encontrar cuál de todas las respuestas dadas por muchos participantes será la que verdaderamente les sirva.

    Amo mi misión, amo poder servir a las personas, y de hecho me convertí en misionera porque llamaba mucho a call center para aprender a arreglar mi árbol familiar, y quise poner ese nuevo conocimiento al servicio de otras personas.

    Me encantaría que podamos INTERACTUAR con las personas, con un chat en línea, donde UN MISIONERO, pida de forma segura información al usuario, responda sus inquietudes y lo guíe EN VIVO. Porque dejar una pregunta y volver al día siguiente, para evaluar 10 respuestas de gente que no conozco, no es interactuar.

    Por favor miren este comentario:

    image.png

    Si no pudieron ver la imagen, dice: "no todo el mundo sabe cómo manejarse con la tecnología la verdad me gustaría hablar con un Mormón que se de cuenta que *la gente es necesaria*"

    He servido casi 4 años en FamilySearch, y me gustaría que puedan comunicarse conmigo para decir qué cosas no están funcionando bien, porque son muchas y las letras nunca serán mejores que una conversación oral.

    Muchas gracias por leer este comentario, cuenten conmigo para mejorar.

    Marcela. 😉👍️

    3
  • Mirevo
    Mirevo ✭✭✭✭
    October 15, 2021

    Translation from above posting: by MARCE G

    Spanish – detected English

    I am very happy to hear that you are thinking about an update, however, there are people whose voices are not taken into account because they are not that skilled with technology, and if they cannot work a lot with their tree, much less will they know how to enter the sites of community to write your complaints or inquiries. If one day they manage to post a question, they will hardly be able to return to the site to find which of all the answers given by many participants will be the one that truly serves them.

    I love my mission, I love being able to serve people, and in fact I became a missionary because I called the call center a lot to learn how to fix my family tree, and I wanted to put that new knowledge at the service of other people.

    I would love to INTERACT with people, with an online chat, where A MISSIONARY, safely asks the user for information, answers their concerns and guides them LIVE because leaving a question and coming back the next day, to evaluate 10 responses from people I don't know, is not interacting.

    Please take a look at this comment:

    image.png

    If they could not see, the image say: "not everyone knows how to deal with technology I really would like to talk to a Mormon who realizes that * people are necessary *"

    I have served almost 4 years on FamilySearch, and I would like you to be able to communicate with me to say what things are not working well, because there are many and the letters will never be better than an oral conversation.

    Thank you very much for reading this comment, count on me to improve.

    Marcela. 😉👍️
    


    3
  • RaniM
    RaniM ✭✭✭
    October 15, 2021 edited October 15, 2021

    I’m confused as to why my comment was deleted? It was civil, respectful and simply shared my hope for what the update might include. Weird flex to remove it.

    EDIT TO ADD: I’ve been informed my comment was ‘moved’ not deleted. Still feels weird to remove a valid contribution from out of the context of the pertinent discussion 🤷‍♀️

    https://community.familysearch.org/en/discussion/comment/383834#Comment_383834

    0
  • Mark McLemore
    Mark McLemore admin
    October 15, 2021 edited October 15, 2021
    https://community.familysearch.org/en/discussion/comment/385702#Comment_385702

    Hello @RaniM,

    Apologies for the confusion here. I separated it out and moved it to Ideas so it could be tracked separately as a suggestion vs getting lost in the shuffle of the comment section of the announcement.

    Your suggestion is a great one, and one many folks have asked for. While this functionality is not planned for the Nov 1st upgrade, we are considering it for a future update to the community platform.

    Best,

    Mark

    1
  • Mark McLemore
    Mark McLemore admin
    October 15, 2021
    https://community.familysearch.org/en/discussion/comment/385404#Comment_385404

    Hola @MARCE G ,

    Gracias por el mensaje y por tu servicio como misionera. Hay planes para ampliar la ayuda y el apoyo en un futuro próximo y eso incluye ayudar a los que no tienen conocimientos de tecnología. 

    La comunidad está pensada para representar sólo una forma de ayudar a la gente, pero habrá otras formas en las que los individuos puedan obtener ayuda en el futuro. 

    Saludos,

    Marcos

    2
  • CaptBob
    CaptBob ✭✭✭
    October 19, 2021

    It appears that the entire "Ideas" portion of this community forum is no longer accessible to read any of the topic posts.

    Only the main 'overview' is available. I ASSUME this may be part of the November update. If so, it might have been helpful to have explained what would be happening. If NOT, there's another 'glitch' in this forum.

    Is (was) the plan to replace Ideas with Q&A , as had been suggested before?

    1
  • Mark McLemore
    Mark McLemore admin
    October 19, 2021 edited October 23, 2021
    https://community.familysearch.org/en/discussion/comment/387093#Comment_387093

    Hello @CaptBob,

    This was a temporary bug that has been resolved. We will continue moving forward with the consolidation of all Idea categories into a single one titled "Suggest an Idea".

    Best,

    Mark

    0
  • Brett .
    Brett . ✭✭✭✭✭
    October 19, 2021

    @CaptBob

    FYI

    The matter was also raised, a couple of Hours before you did (the previous evening), by another User/Patron:

    "Q and A" Section

    'Category' = FamilySearch Community

    Home > Help Center Categories > FamilySearch Community

    Is the Ideas discussion board broken ?

    https://community.familysearch.org/en/discussion/106346/is-the-ideas-discussion-board-broken

    https://community.familysearch.org/en/discussion/106346/is-the-ideas-discussion-board-broken

    Brett

    0
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