Saturday, April 28, 2007

New LDS FamilySearch site testing

The following letter was sent to LDS church members two weeks ago asking for help in evaluating the new http://www.familysearch.org/ web site. If this is something you want to do, you can follow the link below and participate. You will have to fill out a short survey. Here is the letter:

"Dear LDS Church Members and Friends,

"The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is developing a new version of the FamilySearch.org website. This new website will help members identify ancestors, link them to families, and provide temple ordinances for them.

"Can you volunteer an hour of time to help evaluate this new website? Do you know someone else who might be interested? We need feedback to make the final website as easy and enjoyable to use as possible. We are especially interested in feedback from individuals who are new to family history work.

"Anyone over age 18 interested in participating in this evaluation should go to: http://labs.familysearch.org/temple/static/signup.htm


"Thank you for your interest and enthusiasm. We greatly value your time and opinion.

Sincerely,

FamilySearch Evaluation Team
Family and Church History Department
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints"

I decided to test this out. The survey questions include your age, gender, interest in genealogy, time on the Internet, use of FamilySearch, etc. I completed the survey and provided the contact info requested (name, location, phone, email). They will send an email telling me if I am selected to be a tester.

On the signup form, the Frequently Asked Question links don't work for some reason.

From the letter, it is apparent that they want young people and less experienced researchers to help them with this task. Oh well.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

probably want young people cause they are more used to sites changing format...and would be hip to a "newer format" than us Old genealogists who are so set in our ways LOL also depending on what changes are made, the new website could be "young eyesite friendly" and make us older folks squint to read it...seems more and more websites put more stuff on the page and finding what you are looking for is getting harder and harder...and I can tell you the young people WANT everything on the same page, they hate searching for stuff(not to say they are lazy) might be why most of them are not genealogists...just my Humble opinion. Here's to better websites with what we NEED on them!