Tuesday, April 16, 2013

FamilySearch Unveils Their New Website Design

FamilySearch unveiled their revamped website design today - here is the screen at https://www.familysearch.org:


There are six screens that rotate on the site - for Fan Chart (above), Photos (below), Family Tree, Family Records, Indexing and Live Help.  Each has a link in the image to perform the desired action.

There are only three links to other pages above the image - for "Family Trees," "Photos" and "Search."
Here is the Photos screen:


I clicked on the "Family Tree" link and the new design for the FamilySearch Family Tree

This is the "Pedigree Chart" view - there is a button in the upper left corner for the "Fan Chart" view:


A user can click on a person on the Fan Chart above and the chart will be created for that person.  Here is the chart for Isaac Seaver:


I clicked on the "Search" link at the top of the screen, and the modified screen for the search field appeared:


Scrolling down the screen above, I clicked on the "Browse all Published Collections" link and saw the modified screen for searching all of the record collections available on FamilySearch:


It doesn't appear that the Search page form or the list of record collections have changed much.  The record collection page still lists the collections from 1 to 1,522 (today) with the option to see the "Last Updated" list.

There are buttons at the top of the Record Collection list that leads to "Genealogies," Catalog" and "Books".

So what happened to the Learning Center with the Research Wiki and the Research video courses?  I found them in the "Live Help" screen on the main FamilySearch page:


There are four areas on the "Live Help" screen - "Product Support" (help, FAQs, etc.), "Research Assistance" (by volunteers and experts), "Getting Started" (Beginners articles and videos), and "Learning Center" (research course videos).

Where is the Research Wiki?  I finally found it hiding in the "Research Assistance" area:


I think that the Research Wiki is one of the most important and useful areas of the FamilySearch website.  I bookmarked the Research Wiki page - https://familysearch.org/learn/wiki/en/Main_Page.

I believe that new users, and many experienced users, will be really confused by this redesign, but will adapt eventually.

Frankly, a list of all of the main FamilySearch links should appear on every page in a sidebar or link farm - I would put links for Home Page, Record Search, Record Collections, Library Catalog, FamilySearch Centers, Research Wiki, Research Courses, Getting Started, Research Assistance, Genealogies, Family Tree, Volunteers, Blog, etc. in a list so that navigation to each one of those pages can be made easily.  At least put them on the Home Page so that a user can navigate back to the Home Page quickly (by clicking on the FamilySearch logo) and then navigate to where they want to go next.

The URL for this post is:  http://www.geneamusings.com/2013/04/familysearch-unveils-their-new-website.html

copyright (c) 2013, Randall J. Seaver

13 comments:

Cherie Cayemberg said...

Congrats on the Family Tree Top 40, Randy!

Randy said...

How do I see photos that others have uploaded?

Geolover said...

Thanks especially for pointing out the new burying ground for the Wiki. I find the placement in 'help' especially annoying: "Live help" is a particularly misleading term for an area that includes a huge body of research guidance. It suggests a chat forum for assistance with a site **problem**.

Cormac said...

Slick.

T said...

Hate the new site. Hate! Hate! Hate! New comers will NOT find their way around. Make the site lay out just like all the other site lay outs. Links to the left and/or across the top of the page. And make a link for EVERY part of the site. I still don't know how to find the WIKI page. Will I have to make a favorites folder and save every page there? Seems to be the only way to actually get anyting done. I can spend my time working or looking for the place to search. How many hours do you think I will spend looking before I subscribe to a pay per view site with a search engine right on the front page that produces the answers I'm looking for. Everything is hidden. Why? Hunt for it and feel so empowered when you find it. Just like doing genealogy; looking for those relatives who don't want to be found. Now we can spend equal time looking for pages that used to be on the site.

Wal-Marts philosophy is if they move everything every day, you will pick up other things you see while you are looking for what you went into the store after. What does familysearch want us to buy?

And the family tree. Remember One World Tree? How stupid do people have to be to put their sourced cited tree on a web site for others to edit? I see family trees taking 10 backward steps. You will NEVER see mine there. Cruising the site today, I found three. All three had a different amazing error within the second generation back. Just because her name is Elizabeth doesn't mean she married her husband's uncle! "They" had children when she was 11 years old! Disaster. Just a disaster that will happen within the first month. The trees will nave NO credibility with me.

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Elizabeth J. Neal said...

The web site is lovely. I especially like the clean, uncluttered vibe. Nicely done! website design westchester ny

Anonymous said...
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Unknown said...

Will I have to make a favorites folder and save every page there? Seems to be the only way to actually get anyting done.
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