New Person Page
As a life story or "Life Sketch" is a way of honoring the life of an ancestor, I feel the "honoring" should be placed first on the page rather than at the bottom of the page. The New Person page is more attractive than the former Old Person page. Thank you for working hard to update the overall look of the New Person Page and asking for feedback. Some changes to the New Person Page will take some time getting use to.
Sincerely,
Donna
Answers
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@lyleblunttoronto1 these are great conversations, but the comments seem to be closed. Is this aspect of the design set in stone now or can we still comment?
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There are two different types of sections here in Community. There are the Help and Idea sections where anyone can just post. Then there are the Groups. To post there, you have to join the group first. All three discussions linked to above are in the New Person Page group.
The button to join the group is not found on the individual discussions, only on the main page of a group. To get there, click on Groups in the header here. Then in the list of all groups find the New Person Page or just go here: https://community.familysearch.org/en/group/316-new-person-page
Click Join and you will be able to post and comment in the group. After joining a group, you can find it under the My Groups tab.
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Thanks @Gordon Collett. Very helpful.
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I like the new person page, but as a ward consultant I would like to see the family information before all of the information page. It make it hard to find spouse, parents and children when you have to scroll through all of the sources that have been added first.
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I agree with your critique, Ronda, and feel like the life sketch and family info was a great way to quickly learn about someone. Way too much scrolling is required to find the basic information now.
I also feel like the layout artists should consider "cognitive ease". It is more difficult to quickly read words written IN ALL CAPS AND YET MANY BUTTONS HAVE BEEN CONVERTED TO ALL CAPS, like the tabs at the top and any button that allows you to add content. Furthermore, the variety of font sizes and styles creates confusion rather than clarity. Too much content is in bold, which de-emphasizes the effectiveness of this technique.
Thanks :)
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@RondaRose, your comment about scrolling through sources to get at family members confuses me: where is this happening? The Family Members section is on the Details tab, while sources have their very own tab, totally separate from the one where the family members are, so you should never need to scroll through the one to get to the other. What am I missing?
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I assumed she meant "Other Information," when referring to sources. That section can get fairly long. An early beta version did have the order Vitals, Family Members, Other Information, but people complained and they put Other Information back above Family Members. This is another case where the ability to re-arrange the sections any way we want would be helpful. That Other Information section can get very long.
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I'd like to add my strong recommendation that the Life Sketch be put back at the top of the page. In an official slide deck explaining the changes, the reason given for moving it near the bottom was that some people misused it--i.e., used it to provide warnings to other users.
So... since some people misused the Life Sketch, it should be moved to a place where it's less visible and harder for all users to use? It just doesn't make sense.
For what it's worth, lately I've seen quite a few pages where the Life Sketch was used correctly. On the few occasions when it was used incorrectly, it was because there isn't currently a good way to warn other users about problems. The solution isn't to move the Life Sketch; rather, it's to create a good way to alert other users! (Yeah, I know Notes and Discussions are supposed to serve that purpose, but they're too hidden. There needs to be something more immediately visible to users.) Moving the Life Sketch doesn't solve the real problem and it creates new ones.
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I have an ancestor (KWCV-99J) - in the new Person Page, it says she has 15 Memories, but she has only six. In the original Person Page, it correctly lists six Memories.
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Thanks for the bug report. We'll look into it.
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One thing I am disappointed in is that I can no longer find a way to view the timeline with the accompanying map. The map tool is critical for trying to identify discrepancies in a family line due to locations. When everything is happening in one location and all of a sudden there is one location that is an outlier far from the rest, it raises a red flag It also is extremely useful to identify migration and if all of a sudden something goes back to a previous residence it bears further analysis to verify the family connections are still correct and not another person with the same or similar name.
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New Person page is not working -- 2 Sep 2022
If "See Changes" is clicked in Sources, the new tab that is created has a navigation arrow near the top to return to the sources, but it is not working -- clicking on it does not return to Sources.
The New Person page is still cumbersome with excessive scrolling.
The 'new' feature of additional Source Tags adds function that will be minimally be used, while adding additional encumberment and lessening 'ease of use'. It allows an Alternate name to be tagged. It is much more effective and helpful to just mention in the Reason under an Alternate name any details about that Alternate Name, such as it was listed that way in a Marriage record. This information in the Reason is also available on the first page where it is readily seen when someone has interest in it.
The 'new' feature of Relationships in a 'new' section called Other Relationships also appears to be something that will be minimally used, while again increasing the scrolling by just having the 'new' section. How useful is it to know if someone is a Neighbor or a Godparent or in a Household? These rare and nominal relationships are much better just described in the Life Sketch or in the Reason as an item is created or changed -- again making it clearly and readily available to someone when they look at the page.
This 'New Person' page is greatly lessoning 'ease of use' and creating more havoc, rather than improving any major functions or ease of use.
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@Brent Meredith, the timeline is on the fluff page ("About") right now. We've been told that the map is coming; it's just not done yet.
@KeithSBlake, that "see changes" page opens in a new tab, so it doesn't need a "back to profile" button: just close the tab and you'll be exactly where you started.
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22 Sept 2022
I clicked on the about button and the clicked on Heritage for myself, my mother, my father and my mother's father. All of them had exactly the same percentage for the same countries. This is totally wrong!! Are you going to fix this problem?
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@Black Jed, everything besides the timeline on the About tab is pure fluff. Ignore it.
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@Black Jed great point. The experience is only made for the logged in user's statistic. With it being on the about page, you would expect it to be personalized about the person you are on.
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The Add Event drop-down list has too much vertical spacing.
The colored banner at the top of the page takes too much vertical space.
Please consider more appropriate design for those who are using a smaller screen (in my case, a laptop computer).
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I simply wish to express my disappointment the FamilySearch programmers have decided that the new person page is better than the previous version. The new person page is cluttered and confusing. There is no way that a common user will ever feel comfortable using something so confusing. I know I am old and out of touch with new technology generation but I'll bet that we old folks actually do more serious genealogical research those who believe they need to fix something that is not broken.
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Just pointing out the impossibility of pleasing everyone: in consecutive comments, we have the new format described as having "too much vertical spacing" and being "cluttered".
@mel.s.bowers, it has been explained in various places that the old page is broken: it uses tools or programming that will shortly no longer be supported. Also, the new format adds many new and powerful functions that you really should explore.
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The new person page is ugly and hard to navigate, please leave the option to go to the old person page, once again it seems that this change was change for the purpose of change.
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These two RootsTech presentations discuss the changes to the new pages, including why changes were needed:
----- https://www.familysearch.org/rootstech/session/whats-new-at-familysearch-in-2023
If there are specific items you find ugly and if there are particular navigational paths you find difficult, you should join the New Person Pages group at: https://community.familysearch.org/en/group/316-new-person-page and post your concerns with sufficient detail to be actionable.
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