Helping new users

LegacyUser

Glenn P said: On March 12 a new user of the FamilySearch website posted that she was embarrassed, was no longer comfortable using this site, and that she had received angry messages from a person whose work she had accidentally deleted while learning to use the site. She later that day removed her Post/topic.
Let’s make it easier for new users to understand the basics of the website. Their initial working with the site should not cause embarrassment and frustration.
- Put a direct link to the “Getting Started with Family History” page front and center on the Home/landing page when you sign in. Make the link stand out with bright colors/picture. Make the link on the home page permanent.
- Change the name from “Getting started in Family History” to “Getting Started in FamilySearch”.
- Explain in the 1st 2 paragraphs on the “Getting Started” page that this is a collaborative effort, there is one single tree, and all users can edit the data and thus change the information about ancestors you have entered or others have entered).
- The “Getting Started” page should recommend to the users that they take the time to learn about the website, and provide links to training within FamilySearch as well as a link to the third party Family History Guide website.
- Provide a direct link on the “Getting Started” page to the Help Center page, give a short explanation for how the “Help Center” page works, and call it the “How do I...” link.
- Provide a direct link from the “Getting Started “ page to the “What’s new in Family Search” page, and whenever a new/change feature goes from Beta into Production, add that as information in the “what’s New” page.
A lot of this is already on the site, either under the ‘Help’ drop down menu or elsewhere. Let’s put it front and center to help people understand the basics. Direct and simple to get to. It is also important to avoid downplaying the complexity of the site and its many functions. Help the users understand the site and how it works, so that they will be able to conclude that understanding does make it easier.

LegacyUser

Brian Eric Olsen said: I like this idea and support it.

LegacyUser

Jeff Wiseman said: Good ideas. In fact it has prompted me to start a Topic on something I've been meaning to do for a while now.

LegacyUser

m said: That new user had an extremely unfortunate experience.

LegacyUser

Jeff Wiseman said: Yea, it's unfortunately that we so frequently forget that we were beginners at one time.

I typically add a lot more detail for locations in vitals than the most detailed standard place in the places database has. E.g, a City, County, State, Country may be the lowest level standard for an event, but I will typically prefix the standard with street names, street addresses, Hospital or Cemetery names, etc. which is very useful for some applications. I had the experience where there was a young lady walking through the families in my ancestors, and systemically REMOVING those details, replacing them all with a standard place name (i.e., the name that had been used to standardize the more detailed place names I had put in place).

I found out she was a fairly new user in the Tree and that she had been told by a consultant at a FHC that all place names needed to be "Standardized" place names to be accepted for temple work. In a very literal sense this is exactly true. Unfortunately, the consultant didn't realize that there is a distinct difference between a "Standardized Place Name" and a "Standard Place Name", so they were telling her that the place name had to come from the pull down standard name list that you get when entering place names (in other words the only acceptable display name had to be an exact match of a Standard Name from the database and have a map pin next to it). So she was enthusiastically trying to "do the work" when I contacted her.

Anyway, I explained what a Standardized place name was supposed to be and how she had been throwing away all kinds of very useful and needed details in those records. The poor gal was appalled when she realized what she had been doing. I told her not to worry about it that I would make the corrections for her (since I was already familiar with those records), but I'm sure that she went and reported back to the folks at the FHC to show them that they were teaching the wrong principles. Now, others will benefit from her experience, both directly from her as well as via the consultants who had been "straightened out" :-)

Can you imagine what would have happened if I had just hit her with "why are you destroying all of the information on these families?" She had modified a dozen or so records. Instead of choosing to quit, we now have another advocate for the advantages of the dual-place name system that we have.

LegacyUser

Cousin David said: Excellent suggestion.

LegacyUser

m said: I'm so glad you contacted her and walked her through things and figured out what happened.

Also, I hope that FHS did correct their mistakes in teaching.

LegacyUser

Robert Wren said: Here's another suggestion to aid in "education."

Promote the Family History Guide - especially for NEW Users.
Is there some reason the Family History Guide is not prominently promoted on FamilySearch.org? Why is such a great TEACHING tool basically hidden from view? "It has been used now for years to teach the missionaries at the Brigham Young University... (2019-04-17)

· 28 replies · 4

LegacyUser

Don M Thomas said: I was probably the one that sent out the angry message and e-mail.

See how you feel when you have a family in the tree and everyone in the family has a portrait with tons of sources and things.

See how you feel when the whole family is torn apart.

See how you feel when it takes you (4) hours of hunting all over the database to find each member of this family and bring them back together.

I admit, I was not very Christ like at that moment.

The thing that got me was everyone in this family had a portrait.

Nothing was left of this family.

I certainly was not happy for the open edit or shared "Family Tree" at that moment.

I sent my e-mail and message out last year, so I guess it was not me.

LegacyUser

Jeff Wiseman said: Of course, the map pin icon immediately lets you know whether the name you are looking at is a "Standard Place Name" or a "Standardized Place Name". That pin icon means that the name has an exact geographical coordinate assigned to it.

I would prefer to keep the icon, but like so many other things, since it is not formally defined anywhere, it should probably be removed. At least that way people cannot be improperly instructed to only use names that have a map pin icon. A place name can have one of three states--a standard geographical location, a place that is near a standard geographical location, and a place that is not associated with any geographical location. Respectively, these are represented by a map pin icon, no icon at all, and a data error icon.

Without the map pin icon, the first two states are ambiguous.