Helper Functionality
Why is the new page version taking away the ability to sign in as a helper with their name, birth date, and helper number? I work with a lot of older persons who call me by phone to get help with their family history- it is way easier for them to give me their name, birthdate, and the last five characters of their membership number (the standard default) then talk them through all the menus and pages they have to click through to get to where it says their user name- because often the screen name and the username for them are not the same.
Now for my additional observations and concerns about the new page versus the old page that one can ignore if one so chooses:
I have been annoyed by FamilySearch's apparent failings to consider the impact of their "updates" to the FamilySearch page formatting on the Baby Boomer and the Greatest Generation users that do a huge chunk of the family history work on this site. Designers must consider who interacts with the products they develop the most and ensure that it accommodates the least common denominator of users' physical capacities.
I am a ward consultant, and half my time recently has been helping my older ward members relearn how to use FamilySearch- the navigation keeps changing so frequently they cannot keep up. Even the millennials I work with have been caught off-guard by the recent changes that have rolled out. They are unhappy with them, at least the more seasoned users, and feel bad about their impact on older users. There is an old saying, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." I strongly suspect that the web designers responsible for these updates are generation X or Millenials who don't understand the importance of making sure their designs are easy to read for the older crowd- perhaps they need to bring in older genealogical professionals to beta-test their designs and provide feedback that actually gets taken seriously before even starting a soft-roll out on the general user community occurs.
The other relationships feature is, in my experience, the ONLY sunny side of the update. Still, I would prefer sticking with the old version for everything except for the new page's other relationship-adding function. However, for some people now, the option to go back to the old version is being taken away- they just have to deal with the new page without any means of recourse. Can we just code a new box for the other relationships and allow the user to figure out where it makes the most sense for them to appear? A complete rethinking of the details page was totally unnecessary; a minor addition to the old page layout was all that was really needed to implement the only sunny side of the new updates. I noticed with the new version; one can customize the layout of how the details page appears for a given user- this has been how I have coped with getting used to the new page, as I know the old version would be discontinued eventually no matter what I thought of the new one. Overall, in my years of usage of the platform, it appears nobody in the FamilySearch IT department seems to give a rat's fart about what the professionals and/or older crowd think about the updates that get forced upon them.
Comments
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I completely agree. I think they will be alienating the very people who do the vast majority of work on FamilySearch.
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Ultimately the Helper Functionality is going to be moved into an updated version of the Consultant/Helper Planner. The help others button is a dumbed down version with only the securest method, to help bridge the feature gap, until the update is made.
The person page is used more than any other page on the site. It’s vital that we get it right. This is a period of time that both the old and the new page are available. We hope during that time we can make the New Person Page prefered over the current experience.
The more specific you can be in your feedback the better we can address concerns.
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Your statement, "vital we get it right" is so very sad to me. You HAD it right. No clutter, easy on the eyes. easy to use, easy to edit. easy to find all the information. this "improved" page, takes all that a way. the information is very hard to decern. the edit function is cluttered, hard to look at and SO much harder to use. The about page is frankly, kind of sad as well, it is just repeating information and clutters the site. The memories page is 100% harder to use now. The site worked beautifuly. The only issue used to be that new comers did not have detail view turned on automatically. Now that is least of the problems. I can't even figure out where to set preferred parents. It was very obvious on the good page, but I can't find it on the "improved" page. So very disappointed in this unneeded change. At least I can use the good page a bit longer, but will not be able to use this new version in it's current state, it is just too hard on my eyes
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@lyleblunttoronto1, you may call the “Help Others” button “dumbed down” but it is spot on to what I need. I use it several times a week as a FH consultant and also at the Temple. Please don’t move/hide it in the Planner area or connect it to any other bells or whistles or impedance.
Right now, it provides easy quick access to help FHC & Temple patrons with issues. With their DOB everything needed to access their account and fix or print out a card etc is on their temple recommend. (no need for them to come up with a username or pw or email permission complication).
IMO, In short the “Help Others” button works very well as is. Thanks for listening!
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3 suggestions for helping others and what happens in the screens.
1: when entering the helper mode please bring up the person page of the person we are helping. This greatly reduces confusion when helping multiple people per day. I am currently a missionary work in 110 year approvals. I may enter as helper from 50 to 100 cases per day.
2: when exiting as helper please return me to my home page. Same reason as above.
3: When inputting the username in the helper information form, you used to concatenate the username to remove spaces at beginning and end. This helps greatly when copying and pasting many usernames per day. I appreciate that being added to the recents field for input of PID's so please put it back in helper.
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