Did you see the new Profile Previews on Watchlists? [closed]

Question

Hi WikiTreers,

We are beta testing something new: "Profile Previews."

When you hover over a link to a WikiTree profile a box will pop up with key information about the person. It includes links to the person's father and mother. If you hover over a parent's name within a preview box, it switches to the parent's preview. This enables you to walk up a tree without ever leaving the page you're on.

As of today, for this early live test, they are just on Watchlists. Click here for yours and then put your cursor over any name on the list without clicking on it.

(A note for mobile users: I am sorry to say that this probably won't work for you. Most web browsers on mobile devices don't allow you to hover a link. If you touch a link, you go to the page. You may be able to see the preview box by holding down a link, but I suspect most of the utility will be lost even if you can see it this way.)

Can you see them? What do you think? Post here if you have comments, questions, or problems.

If things are looking good we will make them live everywhere. And I mean everywhere. That's what's going to be really cool about these. They'll appear for links inside biographies, on suggested matches when creating a new profile, on category pages, family trees, descendant lists, surname index pages, search results, merge comparisons, activity feeds ....

They will also work for member's account profiles, e.g. where you see a member's name here in G2G, on thank-you feeds, profile comments, badge lists ....

To see your own profile preview, hover over the link to your profile in the "My WikiTree" pull-down menu link at the top of your Watchlist.

These are privacy controlled so you will see some information that others will not see. For example, you will see your full birth date and birth location, but people who aren't on your Watchlist will just see the birth decade, like on your profile.

What do you think?

Onward and upward,

Chris

Comments

Nicely done!   Thank you kindly. 

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Brilliant!

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Chris, this is outstanding!  Nice navigation too, with the little back button.

If you want to stay with the one box, fixed size, you could make the spouse count and children count clickable.  Clicking '1 spouse' replaces the box contents with the first 4 spouses (spice?), a line for each plus a line each for their marriage info, if any, plus a link to "Next page" if more.  And do the same for children - show the first 8 plus a link for "Next page" if more.  For previous page, they can use the back button in top left.

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Thanks Chris, that's great, very helpful xxx

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I like the feature! It's very helpful.

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We have just released a round of improvements, including enabling previewing spouses and children links as Rob suggested here.

Unless anyone spots problems, soon we will make these live everywhere.

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Like the improvements.

Except, for me it now doesn't work at all in IE11 - nothing pops up when I hover on names in the Watchlist.

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This is great!  It works so smoothly, quickly, and quietly, that I couldn't help seeing 2 more improvements (you're probably tired of my suggestions!).  I can so easily browse up and down, but I often like to go sideways, perhaps checking out the successive birth dates on each sibling, and other reasons.  Would it be possible to add an actionable sibling count and display too?  (e.g. "1 spouse / 3 children / 4 siblings")

And the navigation is so smooth and quiet, it's almost anachronistic when I have to go up and *click* on the Back button.  Could 'Back' be triggered also by a hover over it, one second delay perhaps?  Might also be nice to have a second Back button on the bottom, less mouse travel at times.  These are minor improvements, not required, I'm already happy with it the way it is now.

You know, I don't think I have seen a feature like this, so smooth and quick, on ANY other genealogical product!

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They're now live everywhere!

I'm closing this G2G post to move the discussion here: https://www.wikitree.com/g2g/792328/have-you-seen-the-new-profile-previews

By the way, thanks for that bug report, RJ, and thank you Rob for all the great suggestions. I like the idea of adding siblings.

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This is VERY useful! It helps me to know which profiles need to be completed, revised, etc. Thank you so much! I will get right on it as soon as I return from work-related travels next week! Carol (Baldwin-3428)

Answer 1

This is great. 

It would be even better if it indicated when a profile is PPP.  

And I find it odd (in this presentation and elsewhere in WikiTree) to display the name of just one profile manager for a profile that has multiple managers. I've never been able to work out how the system "decides" which manager is displayed in these situations, and I do wonder what the purpose is for naming one manager from a list. If it's useful to show the manager (it's not necessarily obvious that it is), why name only one manager?

Comments

Hi Ellen,

We should be able to add the PPP status easily.

Adding additional managers is not as easy. The reason we often only show one manager is that we only store one with the basic person data. The one we store is the first one, or if they are removed, the last (I think).

We have assumed that 90% of the time there is only one manager. I don't know if that's accurate, but certainly in the areas in which you work it is not.

Chris

Answer 2

This is awesome!  Opens up a whole new way of maneuvering.  Well done!

Answer 3

This awesome, great improvement!

Answer 4

Thanks so much,Chris

Answer 5

Cindy loves this!!!  Wow, even!  Thanks for this great new feature!

Answer 6

Let me add my kudos to you for this as well!  I love the info and the flexibility it gives.  I especially like that beside each name in the popup is the super-tiny but super-powerful icons to allow you to jump directly to the Family Tree (5 gens) or Descendant List or to the Edit screen so you can start editing right away !

For me, it seemed when I hovered over a parent for more than a few seconds, it acted as if I'd clicked on said parent, and jumped to their info page - which makes it really quick to go back in time (but perhaps not intentionally).  Undecided whether this is a bug or a feature - or just the way "hovering" works in a browser, and I have to adjust to it.  Just thought I'd mention it, in case it was unintentional on your part.

A way to quickly link to spouse / children would be nice - though - you can get there via the Edit screen or Descendants mini-icon, so I can live with it for now.

GREAT work!!

Answer 7

Love it!  Very helpful in so many ways

Answer 8

seems an excellent device, as to adding on children I think it could be too much. I have a few profiles with well over ten or more children to the couple but spouses would work well

Answer 9

Brilliant !! ... a wonderful addition ... Many thanks Chris.

Answer 10

wow, I love this new feature!  A real time saver - yes, add this everywhere.  Thanks Chris.

Answer 11

Great feature... thank you to all the team for continuing to innovate.

Answer 12

What a wonderful tool!  It's magical.  Woohoo!  Woot Woot!

Answer 13

This is fantastic!

Very much looking forward to use when adding or searching for profiles.

Answer 14

Oh! This is great! I don't think we need the children added to the preview, but perhaps the spouse would not be too cluttered. It is really, really useful to move up the tree quickly by following the links. The Connectors should be very happy.

Answer 15

It's very helpful.   In trying it, I realized that I have more people and information to add to my family tree.  So it's a quick and easy way to see both what I have already included and what I need to add.

Thanks.

Answer 16

Very well done.  One aspect that I particularly like is that, unlike many website with hotlinks, these don't immediately pop up if touched or even grazed by the cursor as it gets moved around the page.  Had to keep the cursor on the name for a couple of seconds before the pop-up box appeared. And that is a good thing!  I've seen sites where every time I moved the cursor even a little, another box pops up; and moving the cursor across the page results in so many boxes flashing in and out all over like little light explosions, worthless!  But this version I found to be ver;y user friendly.  Thanks for the addition!

Answer 17

This is a wonderful new feature-thanks to those who have worked on adding it.  While useful for watchlists, this will become especially helpful when navigating descendant lists (for ancestries of spouses who marry into the descendance), search results, and merge comparisons.

Answer 18

I love it! Hovering over the profile helps us make the next decision about what to do.

Hooray for Wikitree and ongoing innovation.

Answer 19

Adorable and Useful

But..... since you are requesting feedback while doing limited Beta Testing here are some details I noticed:

When the mini-profile pops up it obscures whatever is written behind it. This may end up being troublesome such as when it obscures part of a menu one is trying to read. I noticed the Beta test does not seem to show how this will work on a complex profile that has many live profile links next to each other like when someone has many family member links at the top of their profile,  and the link zones are so closely packed on the screen. You did say everywhere, right?  So we have to imagine that scenario unless you can extend the beta test to include it. I imagine maybe a bit of a pile up of overlapping zones on the more complex profiles.

You say this feature will be live on ALL screens where profile links exist. I think this will make some screens very reactive to exact cursor placement (or maybe to random screen touches if one is using a touch screen or touch pad instead of a mouse as I use). I am a bit sloppy with my cursor placement and often use the cursor as a pointer to read a difficult passage or mark how far I have read. Sometimes I jiggle my mouse for no particular reason or to figure out where the cursor really is because I can't see it without the motion. 

I think we all will maybe have to learn to me much more careful with cursor placement as the screens on complex profiles will be very reactive. 

Also, the pop up occurs after one second of hovering on my computer. I am a slow reader and a slow thinker, so this time frame which is great for laddering up a tree, is possibly a bit quick for covering up text one is trying to read. Could a "disable the hover feature" be offered to each user as a preference or are we all in this together? 

When I "x" a mini-profile to make it go away, it seems to reassert itself rapidly when I go back to the pull down menus unless I approach the pull down menu from the side which I feel is counter-intuitive. It's odd, but not impossible to adapt to . Possibly once "x"ed the pop-up could be disabled for a longer set of seconds? 

Even exactly as it is, I think it will be a powerful tool for working with family groups. It will be like being in a starship and discovering a wormhole to shorten the galactic journey. I bet I will like it and use it,  but I expect a period of bumpy adaptation to the peculiarities of this feature being EVERYWHERE assuming you can't allow individuals to disable it. 

Answer 20

Interesting notion, definitely useful when you are inspecting your watchlist.  Extending it over all the tree, now there I'm not sure how useful that would actually be.  

I just took a look at a profile I am currently working on that has a whole list of people named together, I've been collecting their IDs for the bio.  Right now when I hover over them what I get is the ID number showing up.  Not sure why it's doing that, but I would actually not want the type of pop-up box that shows in watchlist to be popping up in a bio of someone like that.  Pop-ups are overused, they can get highly annoying.  These are fortunately not showing up instantly when you run the cursor over them, when that happens I really get annoyed.