Help Center needs work
LegacyUser
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Jeniann Nielsen said: The Help Center still needs a lot of work. It used to work so much better before it was changed a while back.
One of the biggest problems is that it only gives 10 results in a search. Say for example, I want to find out about how to do research for Denmark. There are many webinars about this. But when I go to the Help Center and type in Denmark, I get only 10 results. How does getting only 10 results help me to find what I'm looking for? I have no idea what webinar topics are even available. It's only by pure luck that I've discovered most of the webinars that are out there.
The other big problem is that it has "Getting Started" as the default search. There is no set of topics like there used to be in order to browse topics like there used to be. The claim from FamilySearch is that this is someone can now search for what they want. The problem is that people have no idea of the resources that are available, and people also don't even know what keywords to search on sometimes. People don't even know what they don't know oftentimes so they have no clue how to search effectively to find what they need.
When I do try to do a keyword search on something, say ordinance questions for example, I almost never get the article I'm looking for because I didn't use the right set of terms to get what I need. Previously if I had an ordinance question, I merely had to go to the Ordinances area and browse through all of the articles that were organized nicely and I could always find what I needed.
I really wish that FamilySearch would improve the Help Center. Please make more than 10 results in a search. And please, give us some topics to browse through so we know if there's even something on the topic we want to learn about.
Thanks!
One of the biggest problems is that it only gives 10 results in a search. Say for example, I want to find out about how to do research for Denmark. There are many webinars about this. But when I go to the Help Center and type in Denmark, I get only 10 results. How does getting only 10 results help me to find what I'm looking for? I have no idea what webinar topics are even available. It's only by pure luck that I've discovered most of the webinars that are out there.
The other big problem is that it has "Getting Started" as the default search. There is no set of topics like there used to be in order to browse topics like there used to be. The claim from FamilySearch is that this is someone can now search for what they want. The problem is that people have no idea of the resources that are available, and people also don't even know what keywords to search on sometimes. People don't even know what they don't know oftentimes so they have no clue how to search effectively to find what they need.
When I do try to do a keyword search on something, say ordinance questions for example, I almost never get the article I'm looking for because I didn't use the right set of terms to get what I need. Previously if I had an ordinance question, I merely had to go to the Ordinances area and browse through all of the articles that were organized nicely and I could always find what I needed.
I really wish that FamilySearch would improve the Help Center. Please make more than 10 results in a search. And please, give us some topics to browse through so we know if there's even something on the topic we want to learn about.
Thanks!
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Paul said: I see what you mean. Typing in any country gave me only 5 results under Lessons and 5 under the Wiki heading. However, clicking on one of the other categories (say Wiki) then going back to (click on) "All" a second time produces a lot more results. Seems to be the same URL for "both" pages, though!
I discovered this more by luck than judgement. Agreed - page needs to be made far clearer on how you can get more results.
(Ref. https://www.familysearch.org/ask/land... - click on "Wiki", then on "All" - now there are 15 items under both Lessons & Wiki, but this is possibly the default "maximum", whereas the first search gives you the default "minimum" - just guessing! I suggest to try playing around with the options on this page.)0 -
Paul said: Update - clicked on "Articles" from where I was previously, then on "All" and page goes back to the display showing just the 5 Lessons and 5 Wiki results!
I'm sure a programmer can explain this behaviour, but how does the average user get to work out how to increase the results available? Hopefully, it's just a bug.0
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