Functionality loss and inefficient workflow design with record hints

RTorchia

With the old person page, if you used the floating dialog to dismiss multiple hints, the reason for dismissing was automatically copied between the record. This actually ended up being very useful -- I didn't have to retype "Different families with similar names, dates, and locations" repeatedly. That functionality didn't exist on the dedicated Research Help page, and it's gone now that the floating dialogs are gone.

Also, the floating dialogs were vastly superior than the sliding panels, which are horribly inefficient in both design and behavior. There's that slow, processor-wasting slide animation, and the buttons are bizarrely placed in different corners of the window, so instead of moving the mouse an inch to act on the record like with the floating dialog, you have to slide it all the way across the monitor:

...then drag it all the way back to the center of the screen where you actually do the work. Plus there's the loss of Ctrl-click functionality to open the linker in a new tab, as mentioned here: https://community.familysearch.org/en/discussion/142376/new-person-page-functional-differences-with-ctrl-and-tab-keys

It may not seem like much, but when you're doing it a hundred times an hour, it's a slog. In general, buttons seem to have been spread out, making repetitive edits more tedious.

Julia Szent-Györgyi

I like the side panel (other than the initial animation nonsense); it scrolls independently of the Details page, so I can easily compare the index summary to the Family Members section.

It would be nice if the "Cite This Record" section were removed from the summary; I haven't come up with a use case for its presence there. This would help to reduce the amount of scrolling involved. (I swear, people on the programming team must own stock in a mouse manufacturer: they want us to wear out our buttons and scroll wheels.😁)

I think the attach/dismiss buttons are at the bottom in an attempt at encouraging people to actually look at the record instead of just automatically attaching it.

I agree that the loss of the session-persistent dismissal reasons is not a change for the better, and the checkbox reasons are not really useful. They did improve the interface, though: the "other reason" box started out as a single-line text box that couldn't be expanded. (I like to think that the improvement was in response to my complaint about it in this group, but I'm certain I wasn't the only one to object.) So perhaps there's hope that previously-typed dismissal reasons can be made somewhat persistent again.

Another change I would appreciate is if the "View Record" button acted like a button, opening the record in a new tab, rather than acting like a link and hijacking the Details page that I was on. (This is a problem throughout FS's site: it's full of buttons that act like links, hijacking pages unless you remember to right-click, and also of links that act like buttons, so they can't be right-clicked.)

YColeman

I totally agree with all of Julia's comments concerning the "View Record" button.

" Another change I would appreciate is if the "View Record" button acted like a button, opening the record in a new tab, rather than acting like a link and hijacking the Details page that I was on. (This is a problem throughout FS's site: it's full of buttons that act like links, hijacking pages unless you remember to right-click, and also of links that act like buttons, so they can't be right-clicked.)"

RTorchia

I like the side panel (other than the initial animation nonsense); it scrolls independently of the Details page, so I can easily compare the index summary to the Family Members section.

It should be an option for if/when you need it, but (at least for me) in most cases the old compact floating dialog gave me enough information to see if the record, and forcing a full record to be displayed, hogging about a quarter of the window and forcing repetitive broad mouse gestures.

I think the attach/dismiss buttons are at the bottom in an attempt at encouraging people to actually look at the record instead of just automatically attaching it.

They have to go through the source linker to complete attaching it. If not enough information is given from the summary, a better solution would be to ensure it's displayed in the linker, which it mostly already is.

RTorchia

Having used this for a few months now, I've done the opposite of just getting used. Putting critical pieces of UI at the very bottom edge of a browser window and in a different area code than the information it refers to and related UI is horrific design and a major workflow impediment. I'm often working with multiple browser windows open to compare individuals, family members, sources, etc., and as the windows get adjusted and rearranged, inevitably some get shifted down so that the bottom of the window extends past the bottom of the screen. A lot of people do this with browsers all the time, and it's no big deal because most web designers recognize that the bottom of a browser window is usually non-critical static dead space. Look at the bottom of this very window for example, or any major website, really -- nobody sticks a critical, frequently-used UI element in the corner a couple pixels from the edge of the screen. That placement is terrible, spreading the information out like that is bad and pop-open column design was simply a failed idea.