Mobile Compatability

Question

Is anyone working on improving how WikiTree appears on mobile devices? Supposedly 72% of internet users will only be using their smartphones to access the internet by 2025 [https://www.cnbc.com/2019/01/24/smartphones-72percent-of-people-will-use-only-mobile-for-internet-by-2025.html], and personally I know several people who do not have desktop computers or laptops in their homes (I am a millennial but the people I am talking about vary between millennial and Gen X, and even some baby boomers who rely mainly on smartphones and tablets/ipads/kindles). Of course the percentage is likely different among the genealogical community, but we want to get lots of people to come to WikiTree and improve it, right?

I recently did some edits and forum posts on my smartphone and it worked out ok. But the website is not formatted for the narrow screen. The text is very small and the screen is too wide. There is a lot of zooming in and out and scrolling to the right and left required to be able to see and click on everything.

Wikipedia has a new mobile interface, and I have done some Wikicode edits with it on my smartphone. It works well, with a few minor bugs. I actually use it a lot for minor edits and talk page discussions. Wikipedia has changed the default look and feel of their website over the years (the current version is more mobile-friendly), but they allow users to go into their preferences and change the "skin" so it looks like older versions of the site. Perhaps WikiTree could do something similar.

Personally, I would especially like to see G2G developed to be more mobile-compatible. I tend to use my phone more for chatting/social media use, which is what the G2G forum feels like. For serious research and analysis, I still like to use my desktop PC (usually).

The ability to easily upload photos to your WikiTree profiles via a mobile phone would also be a huge plus.

It might be helpful to have better mobile accessibility for some of the WikiTree apps that help you accomplish tedious editing tasks as well, such as the GEDCOM matching tool or the FamilySearch matching tool. Smartphones are great for doing repetitive tasks. It's almost like playing a game.

Is there work being done on improving the interface for mobile devices? Anyone have other thoughts on what parts of the website are most often used on a smartphone?

Comments

I know a lot of people do a lot with their phones, I have a somewhat recent iPhone, but outside an ocassional text message and checking the weather, I would not use the phone for this. I do not use the phone for email.

I think there are far more important projects for the WikiTree programmers to work on.

Answer 1

Mary, i have found difficulties working using my phone, especially on G2G. The formatting makes it hard to read and respond.

Comments

Are we making any progress so that the stickers look better on mobile?

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I haven't noticed problems with stickers. Profiles look great on my android using firefox, but when I go to the edit tab there are some window sizing issues, namely the "uncertain/certain" selections spill over into the right margin of the page.

Answer 2

I'm working on making G2G more mobile-friendly :) Here's a small preview:

It still needs a lot of work but I estimate it will be done by the middle of November.

Comments

Looks good Jamie - if you want volunteers for testing, I would be happy to help.

Answer 3

I'm with Mary (even though I am not a Millenial!). I spend a lot of time on trains (and waiting for them), travelling for work during which I would love to be able catch up on G2G posts, but is very difficult because you end up swiping left and right to read the posts.

I was just about to post on this topic and found this post, so glad to see it's not just me.

Comments

I agree. What bothers me most is when I click on "My WikiTree," the screen scrolls left, and I have to scroll back right to access the dropped-down menu.

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Mmm.  I'm reading this all right now on my iPhone and it's just fine. No swiping required.

The only thing I can't do on my iPhone (but can on my iPad) that drives me nuts is tap on a link in email and get to wikitree without having to login.  Every time.  Every tap. I have to hold the link and copy it, double tap the home button (not sure how I'd do this in the new buttonless iPhones) to open the browser, then paste. I've gotten used to it but I resent it every time.

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Both the phones I've accessed Wikitree on have been Samsungs, first a Note 8 and now an S10+. I don't even try to edit profiles (laptop-chained Boomer here) except for an occasional typo correction.

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Okay, this looks horrible on an iPhone:

https://www.wikitree.com/genealogy/Powhatan-Descendants-3

The last generation is a single-character column of text.