Who When Where

Is it me, or have LDS lost the plot in redesigning the opening interface for their FamilySearch records searches?

They have made Searching for individual records a lot harder. Whereas you used to be able to specify up front what you want, (e.g.choose a birth, give name, date and place), now you have to make a general query, and then try to narrow the results down to what you want by using filters. The results screen is so cluttered, one can’t see the wood for the trees, making their user interface design a complete nightmare to use.

Where once I used to enjoy searching their records, I now only use it for finding images of parish records via their catalog search.

Does anyone actually like the new interface?

If you click "More Options" on the front screen, you get immediate access to the detailed search options. However, it looks like you have to do this every single xxxx time....

They lost the plot ages ago, starting when they defined FamilySearch as a social network. Huh?

They also belong to the "More is more" school as far as results go - their techies have said things along the lines of "But we give you more because the answers at the start might not contain the records that you need". In vain do I point out that nobody is going to sort through more than 2 or 3 screens worth, so giving me 22 or 23 screens is pointless.

I agree, it is rubbish! To the extent that I rarely try and use FS now as it takes so long to get to the start of what I want!

Thank goodness, I thought it was me! It is the site that baffles me most

AdrianBruce wrote: ↑22 Nov 2021, 15:01 If you click "More Options" on the front screen, you get immediate access to the detailed search options. However, it looks like you have to do this every single xxxx time....

They lost the plot ages ago, starting when they defined FamilySearch as a social network. Huh?

They also belong to the "More is more" school as far as results go - their techies have said things along the lines of "But we give you more because the answers at the start might not contain the records that you need". In vain do I point out that nobody is going to sort through more than 2 or 3 screens worth, so giving me 22 or 23 screens is pointless.

I totally agree, a single page comprised of twenty x 2 line synopsises (synopses? ) is more useful than five x 10 lines of detailed results, most of which don’t seem at all relevant to the search criteria. i.e. why show births of Fred Smiths, when one’s looking for a marriage of Fred Smith in 1866!.
They seriously need to go back to the drawing board on this, which is a shame as they are by far the best for quantity and quality of vital records.

I think many of these sites are designed purely by "techies" with no input from anyone with any experience of actually researching family history. Find My Past seem to make similar moves each time they redesign, adding more clicks and scrolls to reach information that is required, e.g. the reference details (piece number, folio and page) for census entries. Admittedly though this is not as bad though as what Family Search have done, which has made it harder isolate particular entries.