Sat 7/11/2020 6:20 PM
Jeff,
If you or Jim decide to take on a trial of the Ancestry.com software, you might get a kick out of this listing of enhancements I will be submitting. ?
I’m a fan of the Ancestory.com product. Thank you!
As a former software analyst, I would love to submit several suggestions. Do you accept feedback? If so, where should it be sent?
The following suggestions are in order of those I think would generally help the most.
- Ease-of-use and easy-to-use are not the same. Some actions require eliminating repetitive steps. The most annoying is searching for an individual. Not counting entering the name, to search for an individual takes five clicks every time I use the Leaf on the top menu. Find a Person ought to be a top-level menu option. And yes, I do realize that using the tree sometimes is more straightforward.
- The five hints shown from the Leaf on the top right-hand menu is too many. Too often, and especially when you have a system message, the menu must be scrolled to show all hints and gain access to searching for an individual. Please give us a settings option to change the number of hints displayed or put the Show all Hints at the top of the list.
- The List of All People is hidden. I love it now that found it. But it has shortcomings. It only sorts by name. It should also be sortable by birth-date or death-date order.
- Word and PDF documents can only be downloaded, not displayed to screen. Do I take the time to create a LifeStory and delete the Word and PDF copies? Time permitting, I sometimes do. Ouch!
- It is nice to view the full gallery of images and pick a type of media. But there is no way to search the media. Ouch! It would help if you could sort the full gallery like you can sort the gallery of an individual’s record. Search and sort options are needed. Sort options need to include by-event-date. An event-date sort for LifeStory documents helps establish a timeline. Also, gallery photos should display without the necessity to click on every picture to see the full image. The labels should be under a photo, not on it.
- Ancestry’s HINTs is a powerful feature, but mistakes can happen. A box of explanations (similar to those offered for ignored hints) is needed when we make a manual reversal. Optionally, to do a reset on the “history” of Ancestry hints would work. Of course, In both situations, I know data must be manually corrected.
- LifeStory options should display and use “when the story took place” as the default or an optional sort-by-date. The current sort-by-date-entered has value, but it shouldn’t be the only option.
- A “pet” relationship would be appreciated. Pets are essential for many of us, but I don’t think we should use family relationships for them.
- We need a Site profile in addition to the Personal Profile. It is a place to provide general site narratives and updates. The present limit of a couple of sentences in the Personal Profile is ok for displaying to the public. It doesn’t address the need for detailed information and summary updates for users as the site grows. One option is to place Site Profile as a top-level menu item and map it to a user-selected URL.
- A font solution setup to give users overall control of website and document fonts would welcome enhancement. Some of us, not all, need larger or a more readable font.
- The statistical summary should also count the number of web links. Do this if for no other reason than it acts as a friendly reminder that web links are useful. I don’t have any audio or video yet, but I think about it every time I review stats.
- You have the best Reports on the Market. I love your LifeStory and Facts reports, but it took me a long time to find the Family Group Sheet. I would relocate it beside your other two World-Class reports.
Thank you for listening.
Dr. John P. Elcik, IV
Retired Systems Analyst
https://support.ancestry.com/s/article/Providing-Feedback-About-Ancestry
