Let me go directly to the person I click!
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Tony Ramon Martinez said: In family tree when you click a person it goes to a pop up window for which you then have to hit person to actually go there (sometimes that is useful but rarely for what I am doing). Is there a setting (or trick) to make it go straight to the person rather than the inefficiency of going through the pop window every time? There are a number of ways this could be done (let me set my option, have two click options, hover for resume and clock to go to the person, etc.
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Tom Huber said: From a person's page, right-click on the person whose record you want to open, select open link in (new tab or window)... and it will open the new person's record without going through the summary card first.
From the recents list, if you click on the name, it will open the person's record without going through the summary card.
From the Pedigree view, you can right-click on the name of someone in the tree, select open link in... and it will open the details page of that window.0 -
Tony Ramon Martinez said: Thanks. I have done this but then I grow a long list of windows or tabs in my browser and I have to go through and close each one (and take time to make sure I am closing the right ones), so I still get an inefficiency which can be more painful than going through the summary card.0
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joe martel said: Interesting idea. Maybe just one "Goto" link instead of Person and Tree, and it stays in that view mode (person, detail) you currently are in.0
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robertkehrer said: Tony,
You asked for simple "tricks" that could get you to a person efficiently. I also like to get back to exactly where I was before I went to the person. Here's how I do it, and it is hard for me to imagine anyone creating a user experience that is quicker and simpler than a single click to open and single key command to close.
Go to a Specific Person Page:
1) Command-Click the person's name
Result: The Person Page for that person will open as a new tab.
(Note: If you use Windows it is probably Control-click)
Go Back Where You Were (closing the opened Person Page tab):
1) Type Command-W
Result: The Person Page tab closes and you will be returned to the page/tab from which you launched it.
(Notes: Again on Windows I think it is Control-W, This key combination will close whatever tab or window you are on.0 -
Tony Ramon Martinez said: Thanks Robert. I do that, but one then has a large set of window/tabs to deal with which is kind of tradeoff in terms of extra work. Either an extra click every time to get to the person or an extra click every time to close the new windows.0
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Tom Huber said: This is really more of a browser option than a site option. Plus, with the limited development resources available to FamilySearch, the kind of option you are asking for may be years before it is developed as an available feature.
The FamilySearch site has never been fully developed. There are a lot of areas that still need developing, especially with respect to sourcing events in the massive tree.
Regardless, the idea has a lot of merit and the trade-offs are nothing more than current workarounds.
Yes, I wished there was a way to single click and have the new person's page open over the other one because I get lost with all the resulting open tabs. So, I put up with going through the summary screen -- an extra click is not that much more work, compared to the alternatives.0 -
Jordi Kloosterboer said: Use CTRL-click instead. It opens in a new tab but it opens the vitals page without doing another click.0
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Jordi Kloosterboer said: Yeah I can confirm ctrl-click and ctrl-w are the correct ones for windows.0
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Tom Huber said: Tony is aware of that option, but he doesn't like the idea that it opens additional tabs that eventually have to be closed.
I can understand his frustration because I use the option upon occasion and sometimes (not always) lose my place as to which tab needs to be closed...
What Tony (I believe he is asking this and if that isn't the case, then he can correct me) is asking for is a one-click solution that opens the new profile over the existing page from which the name was clicked.0 -
joe martel said: With respect to a single-click going to the new Person. In general a link on a web page can invoke a popup or navigate the user to the next page. In todays implementation for the Person's name it invokes a popup called the Person Card.
1. The intent of the Person Card popup is to give the user a high-level view of the person without going there, thus losing their context.
2. On the Person Card popup a user can then dismiss back to the page, or goto the new Person details, or go to the tree view for that Person.
If the link never showed the person card (#1), then users who just want to look would always be going to a new page, possibly losing their context. Hover could be used, but that is not possible on some platforms, plus many users don't know how to use hover.
Another option would make it user configurable. This is complicated and would be a problem for many users having to know to go to their preferences to set or reset that value. This also begs the question of providing a lot more personal preferences for this and that. All new features take new code, and forever maintain that feature.
So would you give up #1 in all situations to make click always go to the new Person page/tree?
Are there other options to consider?0 -
Tom Huber said: While having the option would be nice, Chrome currently could not support both the summary card view and a one-click to overwrite the existing screen.
The feature would cause a lot of problems for those who depend upon seeing the summary card, and while the right-click offers the option to open the screen in a new tab or window, it does not destroy the screen from which the name was clicked.
Therefore, the only option is to make the choice configurable, but that causes major problems in and of itself as you (Joe) have pointed out.
But there is a third option and that is the mouse roll-over which brings up the options of 1) open the person in a tree view (new tab), 2) open the person overwriting the existing view, or 3) open the person in a new view.
That's going to be cumbersome from a programming point of view. Every instance where one can use the solution would have to be accommodated and that gets tricky.
Finally, one could take the approach used in the recents list, but that means adding a tree icon to the name wherever it appears.0 -
Tom Huber said: My mind kept coming up with possible options, but I don't consider any of them better than what we currently have.0
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Jordi Kloosterboer said: I like the person card popup0
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Tony Ramon Martinez said: Great comments by everybody. I can see the challenges. One approach that could be simple and work for everyone would be to have a small icon just to the right of the name where clicking the icon would bring up the card popup and clicking the name would go directly to the person. (Or you could have the icon go to the person and the name to the popup, makes no difference for me). Thoughts?0
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Tony Ramon Martinez said: Great comments by everybody. I can see the challenges. One approach that could be simple and work for everyone would be to have a small icon just to the right of the name where clicking the icon would bring up the card popup and clicking the name would go directly to the person. (Or you could have the icon go to the person and the name to the popup, makes no difference for me). Thoughts?0
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Tony Ramon Martinez said: Being a Computer Science professional myself I realize the challenge of changing any software, even in a small way, but given that clicking names and navigating through our trees is such a common operation, adding the extra icon could literally save millions of clicks per day throughout the world.0
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robertkehrer said: Tony,
While I am a product manager at FamilySearch, I do not have any responsibility for the area of the website we are discussing. As a user, I am trying to understand the request, but I must still be missing something. Please correct the following if I mischaracterize anything.
It sounds to me that you want a means of clicking once to go from wherever you are on the website where a Family Tree person name is displayed to the Family Tree Person page for that person -AND- you want to be taken there in the same browser tab. It sounds like your user experience goals are: minimize the number of user actions (clicks, tab closures, etc) -AND- you don't want a high number of multiple tabs open simultaneously. Did I get that right?
I'd like to add to that a couple of assumptions that I think are reasonable, based solely on my own research patterns. I recognize that these may be relevant to you, or any other researcher, to varying degrees.
1) Desire to Return
When leaving a page (like the pedigree, or SourceLinker) I almost always desire to return to exactly the spot that I left when my specific task is complete. I often will jump off of a specific page multiple times repeatedly until I have exhausted all the tasks I need to do for that person or family group. If you never need to go back, then most of this analysis is irrelevant, but I present it because "going back" is for most users and most workflows the more common scenario.
2) Multiple Tabs
Your comments imply that you do use multiple tabs, as do most of us. If I understand your concerns regarding tabs accurately they are that you do not want a bazillion of them all open at once -AND- you desire to minimize the user action of closing them after opening them.
If I got that all correct I want to compare the two paths presented in he thread against those criteria. Goal = get to person page and get back with minimal user actions.
Option 1: Icon & Name
Summary: Each name is clickable to take the user directly to the person page in the same tab/window. Each name has an icon to pop the person card for access to other info/links
Step 1: User targets person name with mouse and clicks the name. Person page loads. (1 Click)
Step 2: User targets browser back button and clicks. User is taken back and previous page is reloaded. (1 Click)
Option 2: Command-Click & Command-W
Summary: No new engineering. each name, when command clicked, takes the user to the person page in a new tab. Command-W closes tab returning user to exact page they left.
Step 1: User targets and Command-clicks the name, is taken to person page in new tab (1 Click)
Step 2: User, on person page tab, types Command-W and new tab closes returning user to original page. (Key Command)
Analysis:
Both paths require two user actions each.
Option 1 requires 2 separate mouse targeting and click events. The second click results in a page reload, which may or may not return the user to the exact user view they were on before. Many pages now persist the user view across a reload where technically possible (like the historical records search results) but given the number of places where a tree person's name may be displayed there is no guarantee the user view can always be restored precisely
Option 2 requires 2 separate actions, one mouse target & click and one key command. Generally key commands are simpler because they can be executed by the user without reaching for the mouse then looking at the screen, finding the small cursor and targeting the cursor on the screen. The user is assured that the original page is not reloaded and therefore the original user view is always unaltered.
I realize that there are other possible paths. I have chosen to just analyze the two presented in the thread because they als… [truncated]0 -
Tony Ramon Martinez said: Thanks for your thoughtful reply. You have correctly seen my concerns. I just want to transfer to the person I click just like a standard link click on a typical webpage. Of course there already exists a natural way to get back which is just the standard back button on any web-browser so that capacity is still there. Also the current page you are on would usually have a direct link to the person you came from anyways if you want a one-click transfer.
I can see where there are occasions one might want the multiple tabs, though usually lots of tabs are confusing and are a cognitive load and each will eventually require another click to close. Yet again, that option would be available anyways since standard web browsers allow a right click option to open in a new tab/window if that is what you want. Thus you would still have that capacity just using your browser.0 -
Tony Ramon Martinez said: Thanks for your thoughtful reply. You have correctly seen my concerns. I just want to transfer to the person I click just like a standard link click on a typical webpage. Of course there already exists a natural way to get back which is just the standard back button on any web-browser so that capacity is still there. Also the current page you are on would usually have a direct link to the person you came from anyways if you want a one-click transfer.
I can see where there are occasions one might want the multiple tabs, though usually lots of tabs are confusing and are a cognitive load and each will eventually require another click to close. Yet again, that option would be available anyways since standard web browsers allow a right click option to open in a new tab/window if that is what you want. Thus you would still have that capacity just using your browser.0 -
Randy Wilson - Employee said: Of course, then you're still doing click/pop-up/select. A quicker way to do this same thing is to ctrl-click (PC) or cmd-click (Mac) to open the person in a new tab. However, this does leave a trail of tabs for every person you navigate to. Sometimes this is what you want, but often you're just trying to navigate up your tree to where you want to get started.0
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Randy Wilson - Employee said: Robert, I think the name + icon suggestion gives you the best of both worlds.
- You can do a single click on a link to take you to the person you clicked on. This is how most hyperlinks work.
- You can do a single click on the tiny card icon to see the card.
- You can hold down Cmd (or Ctrl) while clicking to open the person in a new tab, just like you can today. And then close that window to quickly return to where you were (again, just like you can today).
But when you're just trying to navigate your way up the tree and don't intend on returning back down it, you can single-click your way up the tree instead of having to use two clicks or a trail of tabs.
This sounds like a very reasonable suggestion. If we're overly worried about the change in user experience, a compromise would be to add a "goto" icon next to the name that takes you directly there. I think a card icon makes more sense in the long run, though.0 -
robertkehrer said: Good point Randy. I should have seen that.0
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Jeff Wiseman said: The way it is today seems quite functional. Essentially, the fly-out card is a combination name summary and optional contextual menu. And that contextual menu keeps everything in a simple consistent operation and not having to start spreading even more icons across the system. I really kinda like it the way it is.0
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Randy Wilson - Employee said: Hiding such a basic function as navigation down in a contextual menu makes take longer to do, and hides it from new users who often don't discover how to navigate for some time.
Another option would be to make it so that clicking on the name navigates to the person, and clicking anywhere else in the person's box brings up the card (as it does today). That would avoid an extra icon if that's a concern. (Or vice-versa if necessary).
If nothing else, we should at least do something like make shift-click go directly to the person. (It currently does the same thing as click, so that at least wouldn't throw anyone off, since nobody is doing that).0 -
Tom Huber said: That idea (shift-click) sounds like a great idea.0
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Jeff Wiseman said: Shift-click is a very BAD idea unless you are going to put a note at the top of EVERY pedigree chart page that describes the fact that you have to use shift-click. Also will that do the same thing on Apple computers that it does on windows?
Where else on the FS website do you need a shift click to do something?
Special mouse selection controls need to be left alone to be used in the normal fashion that the OS's and browsers use them for. And most operating systems have used shift-click as a SELECTION EXTENDER for DECADES now. And you want to hijack that global function and use for one highly customized behavior in one specific type of chart of FS's website??
Another approach is necessary...
'way back a few years before all of the "improvements" were added to the pedigree charts, I believe that it used to basically work that way, and then it was removed. Clicking on a person's name ANYWHERE on the site would take you to that person's detail page (GREAT consistency). But if you want to navigate the tree, you need to indicate whether you want to go to that person in the tree, or go to that person's detail page (the latter of which doesn't change the default tree, former of which DOES).0 -
Tony Ramon Martinez said: It seems like the approach which pretty much supports everyone is to have a small icon next to the name for opening the card.
-Those who want to see the card can do so in one click.
-Those who want to change their window to a new person can do so in one click.
-Those who want to open a new tab/window for the person can do so in one cmd/right click.
Thus all the options are available and we avoid the current extra work of a) extra clicks to get to the new person of b) extra work to close multiple tabs/windows, for those who desire.0 -
joe martel said: Thanks for an excellent discussion. I'll to summarize and I’ll focus on these basic intents (not about opening new tabs...) In summary it comes down to 2 different intents:
- “When I see a name I want to see quick summary of that person and then decide to go there or not”
- “When I see a name I want to go to that page.”
We have one affordance today – the link Person name, so to accommodate 2 intents is tricky.
- A common proposal is to add another affordance - an icon next to the name. I think for this idea the new icon/affordance goes to the person/tree page (intent #2) and the link name goes to the person card. It could be reversed but this mimics the current behavior, bringing up the card from the name. The con is more page clutter – an icon next to each name. I did a quick mockup below.
- Other ideas include keyboard combination with the mouse click. These are hidden and complicated and often conflict with platform and browser function.
Another complication is we are not consistent. We show the name link in other places and take you to the new page, not the Person card. Do most users expects to go to a new page when they see a noun or proper noun on our site?
Personally, I think we leave it as it is. There is a re-design of the Person card so maybe we can simplify by dropping intent #1b which is the footer section. I added "View" because many users don't know they can click on the name to go to the new page.
Mockup with affordances:
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Tony Ramon Martinez said: Thanks for the effort. I like it! Another option would be to put the icon just under the name next to the id as that tend to have a more consistent length compared to some very long names that I work with.
Another overall option to avoid any new clutter would be the following. Right now when you hover over a name it pops up a box with the name and id which is redundant as both of those are already visible. Why not have hover bring up the card and have click take you straight to the person? Hovering is typically a review process so it would also be intuitive.0 -
Jeff Wiseman said: All this just to get around a second click? It is adding more clutter to the chart. It is eating up more space that we frequently don't have enough of anyway. It will be more difficult for inexperienced users to use and harder for people with poor sight.
A blue arrow floating in the middle of nowhere does what? It is not intuitive. And hovering is also not intuitive for people who are not computer literate (like a HUGE number of the members using this site). Not to mention that it is just another major change in an interface that a lot of people have already had to relearn on multiple occasions. It is infuriating to many.
For years now, you would click on a name to go to that person's page. Now we want to completely change that by adding yet another cryptic icon (the arrows on the pedigree chart point towards the parents. Is that where you go when you click on it?)
All this to remove a click when navigating.
Respectfully, I don't see it. I've been using the current pop-up to navigate ever since it was last introduced (not very long ago if I remember correct) and it does not really slow me down or bother me at all (and I tend to be sensitive/picky about such things). Cluttering up an already cluttered interface that people have just learned to use for something that (to me anyway) is questionable whether or not it is an overall improvement.
If they do go forward with this, it will have to be used on all of the other charts as well for constancy. The vertical pedigree, fan, and decendancy charts will all have to have this added for consistency to reduce confusion.0
This discussion has been closed.