Did you see the new changes to search results?

Question

Hi WikiTreers,

Moments ago we released a round of changes to person search results.

The most significant, technically, is the inclusion of DNA test connection information. See this separate G2G post.

Other changes might seem more dramatic and they might affect how you use the search function. These changes are almost all cosmetic in the sense that they're easy to change. We'll plan to make another round of changes after members have played around with this.

Here's what was changed:

1. Larger fonts. Names now appear 20% larger than our default font size, and the dates and locations are our normal font size rather than in the smaller font size.
2. Gender indicators. If the person's tree is public or you're the profile manager, you can see whether the person is male, female, or unknown by the blue, pink, or green background on their name.
3. Privacy icons have moved. The search results used to appear as if they were in a bulleted list, with the bullets being our colored privacy indicators. These colored dots now appear after the names and dates.
4. Direct editing links. If you're logged-in and you're the manager or the profile is Open, there is an icon that takes you directly to the profile's edit page.
5. Family Tree and Tools links. If the person has at least one parent and a public family tree, there is an icon that takes you directly to their family tree page, which links to all the other tools and views for the person.
6. WikiTree IDs. If you're logged-in you can see the profile's WikiTree ID without needing to click the merging and matching options.
7. Image icons. If the person has any photos or images associated with them there is an image icon.
8. Active member indicators. If the person is an active member, "Active" will appear by their name along with their contribution count. Clicking it will take you to their contributions page.
9. Horizontal lines. To help visually separate the now-crowded search result items, there is a one-pixel grey line beneath each one.

Try some searches and let me know what you think below. As I said, most of what was done here is easy to change.

I'm aware that search results may seem busy now, i.e. with too much going on. Too much clutter. We could eliminate some of what was added above. Or maybe we could have some links and information appear in a new pop-up, similar to what we're now doing with DNA info? Ideas for how exactly this might work?

Feel free to make other suggestions too. (But let's keep this G2G discussion related to how search results appear, as opposed to who comes up for what searches or other search options you might like to see. You might want to post those suggestions as new G2G questions, if they haven't already been discussed. If they have been discussed but you want to help prioritize them, you might try to collect, summarize and link all similar suggestions into one new post. Thanks!)

Chris

Comments

I think I liked the privacy circles/buttons at the beginning better, but guess I will get used to it

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Have only used it once so far, I like it, much easier to read. I would still like to see fewer "sounds like, may be" listings. If I am looking for John Young Hipp, I don't want to see Hope, Heap or Heib.

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I think I died and went to heaven!!  THANK YOU!! This makes it not only easier to read, but also easier to find my folks in lists of common names since most of my lines are DNA tested!!  :)

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Very nice indeed. Like Anne, I prefer the privacy buttons at the front like a bullet point, but if it's too much bother leave it where it is.

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Looks good to me. Thanks, Chris.

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Really great improvements. Lots of thought must have gone into this major function overhaul.

The larger font size is a bit overwhelming on my iPhone. I need to scroll more now... but I'll get used to it.

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Good, Good, Good for my Goodes. JPV IV :)

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Hi, the only thing I cannot seem to see is the "Active Member" and contribution count info.   These changes are really good Chris, thanks for doing it

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Yup, like the change

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Hi Chris

Yes I saw the changes and find them awesome. Thank you.

Talking about changes How difficult would it be to show the age of a persone on the profile after the birth and death date has been entered?

I find this very useful on the program I use at home for my private tree. Always an indication if one of the dates are probably incorrect.  

Not ungrateful just pondering.

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Thanks, all.

Sandra, have you tried the "exclude surname variants" option?

Anne and Rosemary, I'm indifferent to the location of the privacy icons. My thinking is that they don't mean as much to non-members and they may be less confusing where they are now, but who knows.

Bob, adding a descendants icon/link would be easy. We don't want to make these too cluttered, but that may be a good addition.

Ronel, "not ungrateful" :-), it would be relatively easy to show the age today, but trickier to show age at death. We should probably consider displaying one or both of those on profiles before doing it on search results.

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Thanks Chris

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Looks great to me! I like all of the improvements.

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Looks great to me.  This helps my tired eyes.   I thought I had encountered a miracle.  Thanks

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I like it thanks Chris. I think the bigger font (though I see Eva's point [below] - especially when having to scan swathes of names & dates in order to determine / find existing profiles a more dense version is great) will help many new members find duplicates more effectively. I never knew what the A stood for, and though I much more prefer the word written full out as, it does raise the question in my mind which criteria applies to have that behind one's name. There are many managers who are not active at all .... some probably passed on ....

All in all a very eye pleasing improvement though ...

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I like the idea, it would have been better if it had found the profile I wanted. I even had the birth date and death date and it still gave me Hemphill instead of Hempel. I know it is in there because I manage it.

Only gave 1 suggestion. Not mine.

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On my Hempel/Hemphill problem, I changed and added all the options, but then I got the RED box saying it was not i the system.

Just for info it is actually Hempel-169. Don't understand why many of my profiles are not coming up on the search.

I don't keep a list of the 200 IDs off line. This was the rapid way to pull them up until recently.

Not sure yet why this Hemphill is coming up.

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Thanks especially for the larger fonts to ease my eyes.

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I still think the results should appear  more table like with birth and death dates lined up... would make it easier to find what you're looking for  when you are searching a large bank of results .. over 400 William Carpenters even sorting by birth date takes longer to read through result.  :-)

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Good job! I really like the font changes! Actually all the changes except one are improvements. Just me on the list for not liking the position of the circle/buttons for privacy. They were better at the beginning. It is just too distracting to have them in the middle. The red privacy buttons stand out too much. I keep wanting to read that line,

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When sorting by birth/death date/place fields, is it possible to highlight the data in that field.

Answer 1

Yeah, especially the gender colour coding to detect possible errors. Also the date range options are great. Overall, great inprovement

Answer 2

Outstanding!

Answer 3

Very good!  I especially like the DNA window that opens when the icon is clicked.

Comments

me too. nice touch

Answer 4

LoL! I couldn't help but notice the increased font size - I don't like it at all. I'm  in the habit of viewing all wikitree pages zoomed out one or two steps for better overview, so the change really got in my eyes.

Now, I'm well aware that my preference for lots of small text on my screen is not shared by most people - I just wanted to share my experience, even if it's marginal.

Comments

Eva, I also like the smaller type size, but we may be in the minority. An intermediate size would be preferable to me.

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Yes, I'm sure we are in the minority. I worked with web support etc. the last years of my working life and there was basically nobody else who agreed with me on this.

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I really like the larger font size and would not want to go back to what we had but I could live with a compromise to an intermediate size.

Answer 5

Looks amazing to me.

Answer 6

thank you for the revised page - However, I feel the 'traffic lights' in the body of the text is too 'busy' - should remain at the left in column formation , and the open "O" is lost in the text - - the grey line separator is excellent  - - the profile-101 is a great addition. ? do males need profile-101 as well as name ? - my name quite long [repeated 3x] examples below - - -

  John Edwin Andrewartha Andrewartha-50 = 13 Nov 1940 Melbourne     managed by John Andrewartha 1045

or another option =    (Andrewartha-50) - - or

  John Edwin Andrewartha-50 = 13 Nov 1940 Melbourne    managed by John Andrewartha 1045

now for females their #-101 could go in their [brackets]

  Mary Elizabeth (Andrewartha-87) Swainston 06 Dec 1846 Sheppey, Kent  managed by John Andrewartha

 

The red Active could remain as just A1045 as the mouse roll-over has the full description, and is fine at the end of the line.

[for a quick example just run a search on my name for a 20 line list]

However , just "food for thought", and thank you ,again - - cheers.

Answer 7

I like most of the changes but ...

1. While I understand the purpose of the gender highlighting, I now find it nearly impossible to determine if I have already visited a link. The highlight makes the blue/purple practically indistinguishable. I use Firefox primarily so have resolved the issue by installing the Visited add-on and configuring visited links to a color I can see. That may or may not help someone else so wanted to include it here.
2. I really miss the privacy indicator being at the beginning of the line. I liked the bullet point appearance of it. It was also very useful in the process I use for adding sources. I could quickly determine the privacy setting on a profile before I bothered clicking on it. When you've got a list of 88 Edward Wilcox profiles, having to jump to the middle of each line to determine the privacy become tedious.

Comments

Come to think of it, I have to agree with you on this. I also use Firefox and it does help to see the privacy settings in one glance ...

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Me too, as I commented before.

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The red privacy buttons stand out to the point of distraction. It was more useful at the beginning.