Results page redesign
My account has been used for testing the new results page redesign. I have had to live with the changes for more than a week, while still trying to do my work. The interface has drastically changed, and not in a good way. The current design took years to perfect. In this new design, everything that was meticulously developed over those years has been completely thrown out and the whole page has been redesigned from scratch. The development of this new design has been made without understanding the needs of the genealogists, but rather from a consistency and look and feel perspective. From a non-genealogist perspective, this new design seems modern and consistent with other current websites. However, this new design does not consider the needs of the genealogist. Far too much space is put into every design element, which means that a genealogist cannot easily glance at a page to spot the information they need. Every time a person has to scroll, that is time wasted as well as repetitive movement, both of which put unnecessary strain on the user. The bar at the top of the screen, which includes the edit button takes up far too much space for the content that is provided.
I have also found serious flaws in the user interface. During the time that I have been unwittingly forced to beta test this new interface, I have been focusing on census records. The interface for the census records contains a serious flaw. The household members section is a critical portion of the results for the census. The standard version contains all of the household members, including the person that the record is for. Being able to see all of the household members together in one glance is critical to allow the genealogist to understand the order of each person within the household as it appears on the census. This is critical information. The new test version does not show the record member in the household, just all the other household members. This eliminates a key piece of information.
Additionally on the census screen, the addition of the drop down sections for the household members might seem clever to the developer. I have been a web developer and know the thrill of adding a new feature that seems exciting and clever. But this is really extra baggage in loading the page that is unnecessary and is not able to fully capture all of the details. If I want to see information about the other people in the household, then I'll click on that person and bring up the new page. The drop down could theoretically do the same thing, but it adds a lot of extra coding and also milliseconds to the page load. Having the fastest turnaround time possible to load the page is far more valuable to a genealogist than clever tricks like this. In fact, even worse is that it will confuse people that are not tech savvy, who just need a simple way of doing things in order to remember how to complete the task. I have run into several genealogists who keep step-by-step instructions for how to get around in finding and reviewing records. Adding fancy features just complicates and confuses people like that, without adding significant improvements that are useful for the advanced genealogist.
In addition, the whole screen has been changed in a way that makes it much harder to do a job that you may not be aware that is needed. Many genealogists use another program to create their family tree. Ancestral Quest is the one I use, but there are many others out there like Family Tree Maker. Best practice for genealogists is to create sources for every record that they find. Sourcing can be done in many ways. The current version of the results page provides a section that says "citing this record". This section is designed to allow the genealogist to copy the citation and paste it into the source citation in their genealogy tree program. The source and citation sections are standard components of the GEDCOM file format for transmitting genealogical record information between users and genealogy programs. Whenever I create a source citation, I also copy the information from the results page and paste it in the text section of the source. This allows me to have a copy of what I was referencing. It allows me to go back and review the source without having to open the webpage again. It also is important if there were ever a time when that page disappeared or if changes occur to the page, which is common for Findagrave results especially.
The newly redesigned results page that is currently being tested has significantly altered the page in a way that eliminates many years of refinements. Please rethink this change. Do not force this onto us as users. Please beta test this and get feedback from users before thrusting this design on us and walking away. At least allow us a chance to be involved in the redesign and show you what you are missing. This is a massive change. The needs of the seasoned genealogist are not necessarily obvious to a developer, just as with any other workflow. Please let us show you what you are missing. Let us beta test this interface in a way that you are willing to understand our needs and make changes to reflect our needs. You have missed the mark in some critical areas with the current test version.
Comments
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Thanks for your constructive feedback Elizabeth. I work with the team on this page, and we appreciate your patience as we work through these updates and changes.
We hear you, right now being part of this beta period, about half of our users are seeing the new experience. We have gathered a lot of valuable information from genealogists like yourself on how we can make this page better suit your needs, and fix issues this update may have caused. Unfortunately, some changes will require some users to adjust their workflows, to enable other users to be successful in the long run, but we are listening and making changes to the page based off the feedback we are receiving.
Some of those changes that we have already fixed since going into our beta period are improved copy-paste, improved printing layout, always displaying the information of the principal person on the record by default, an open/close all persons on the record in the expanders, and I just had a discussion with the team about making the record citation more visible. With the new functionality to expand and see the information of a person on a record without going to a new page, rest assured that the change added no additional size or load time to the page based on how the page and our back-end systems were architected. You still have the ability to see that person on their own dedicated page by clicking their name in blue just like it used to work. We likely won't be able to accommodate all changes requested by users, but we are accepting feedback, and appreciate your constructive comment.
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I really dislike the idea that FamilySearch is going to force that page design on us. What Alex says here is right on point. We do not need more items to confuse the users, we need a way better search engine (At present, most of the time one must find almost everything about a person in order for FS to wake up and give a reasonable hint. Thank you, Ancestry.com), but instead the users get to try to digest the page designs that are evidently appealing to the developers but not at all useful to the patrons. Please consider devoting all this time spent on unhelpful changes to the issues that will really help the patrons.
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I prefer the existing page design to the new page layout. One column top to bottom is more logical and easier to navigate in chronological order than the new layout which jumps into 2 columns for each section. Also the font size and use of white space is better in the existing layout.
A change I would like to see, is the ability to link source documents in the 'other information' section as well.
I really like that the 'Reason This Information Is Correct:' section is visible in the 'other information' section and I wish it was also visible in the vitals section as well. I use this section to record a summary of the details of the event as this information adds interest and meaning to the event and helps to identify incongruent entries when viewed with other events for the same person. For example: Henry James Evans 1810 – Deceased • MMGQ-J7C Perhaps a radio button to show or hide the comment would be helpful for users who post reasons such as "GEDCOM" or "I know this" rather than background information.
I also agree with the previous comment about searching and I generally search with the link to Ancestry.com in the first instance, as familysearch brings up too many irrelevant records.
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@jnail19 wrote: "A change I would like to see, is the ability to link source documents in the 'other information' section as well." This is exactly one of the new features of the new person page that you appear to be complaining about in the previous paragraph. (Why you're doing so on an ancient thread about a totally different part of FS, I don't know.)
You also wrote: "I really like that the 'Reason This Information Is Correct:' section is visible in the 'other information' section and I wish it was also visible in the vitals section as well." Hmm? The detail view (which includes the reason boxes) can be turned on or off identically in the two sections, in both the old and the new layout, so I'm not sure what you're talking about here.
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Yes, yes to everything Alex said! The new results page is much less useful and takes more time to navigate. (I have slow internet, so slower loading is a major issue!)
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