Suggestions

Roy,

:-D :-D :-D :-D :-D

Wearing sunglasses might help to cut down your nicotine intake. ;-)

Just been looking at my tree Rose.

It tells me there are 10 matches for me. 4 birth records and 6 tree matches.

Of the 6 tree matches, 4 are correct then there is 1 born in Oz and 1 in Scotland!!

My word, my mother must have been in labour for a very long time!!! ;-) :-D


I imagine GR are just taking the name and dob and lumping them together.


Hmmmm......4 of us born in the same year - and my mum thought she was giving me an unusual name........ :-S

If you read my post you'll see I did a side by side comparison and it is much easier on the eye on Ancestry than it is on GR despite both being white backgrounds.

I don't know why but it is. And yes Jonesey the text on Ancestry is grren rather than the turquoise on here but for some reason it works better than the text on here. But the biggest thing is distinguishing the boxes in the tree on here from the background..white on white on here.

Jude

I have no problem with change,

The home page looks good and the new tree is an improvement

The overall look and changes to GR are a great step forward and i do prefer the new look but when I'm on the community boards the background is far too bright for me I have changed my settings to compensate but these changes only go so far towards helping but don't solve the problem

I can only stay on the boards for abt 10 minutes at a time which is bad for my health because in the breaks from the board i find that i end up having a fag whilst my eyes recover so have gone from 10 a day up to 30 a day :-P

Roy:-D

Yes Cynthia, to a point,

I suppose though that from my perspective having given feedback on the beta test and feeling confident that along with everyone else's feedback it would 'count' ( and it does seem to have re the colours on the tree, the red
( now purple thankfully lol) stars etc I was disappointed that the main cause for concern which I know was repeatedly mentioned ie brightness, turquoise text colour was 'ignored'. ( and I suspect stongly that it's not the staff's 'fault' but was based on the view to standardise colour with the FR site)

I don't mind exploring, it's how I learned to use the computer, and all the sites I use, being temperamentally averse to reading instruction booklets lol... lots of the people complaining don't mind exploring, but you have to be able to read it comfortably to do that.

btw re matches in records, if anyone can tell me how there can be 28 matches in 1871 for Mary Ann Alice Copas...I'd be happy to know. ;-)

Have no problems using Ancestry but this site does seem to be a little bit brighter although slowly getting used to it.

Also puzzled as to why some changes on font sizes etc are being suggested when I did not have to do that before.

I think Jonesey has point though Rose.

Leaving the brightness of the page aside, there are comments about missing emoticons (which can be fixed as per above) and the numerals which appear on the tree. If people but clicked on those numerals instead of complaining about them, they would see that they represent the number of matches and records which can be found re that person. Simples!


I do think that some members are too quick to comment before they have fully explored the site.


I've also noticed how many members are quick to say ' I don't like it so I'm leaving' before the ink has had time to dry on the page so to speak.


Believe me, if I were not happy about the changes I would have said so :-D

Message from GR on General

http://www.genesreunited.co.uk/boards/board/general_chat/thread/1307277

Jonesey,

The background on Ancestry is less stark because a) it uses shading and b) grey uses more differing pixels and so is easier on the eye.

Plus they also use softer colours for contrast.

Perhaps that is why you haven't heard anyone complaining because there is nothing to complain about!

Even with my limited knowledge of how the brain functions I appreciate that the soft grading introduces the eye gently down towards the background.

Jonesy, I don't honestly think that it is a reaction against change... if it were I would have given wholly negative feedback on the beta test, re the tree etc...which is not the case ( nor is it the case with many people who gave feedback...GR have acknowledged that the colour was commented on negatively in feedback by many..

The majority of people 'complaining' are sensible and not averse to change per se...just very disappointed that a change to something which does not suit the majority may lead to them having to leave the site, or at best limit their usage of it.


Please see my post below as to why Ancestry is not a problem in the same way. It depends on period of usage, amount of text ( and the font type and colour of it) in relation to 'white space'.

How do i make the font size larger please

Tooooo bright and text way too small

Listen to your paying customers GR and fix this quickly or you will lose long time members and no one new will join.

Off to take a paracetomol for headache and only been on for 10 mins

Just a quick comment really. Although I accept that excessive brightness may indeed be a problem for those who have eyesight problems I do wonder whether some of the comments/complaints are fully justified.

I think that probably the most commonly used genealogy sites by most of GR members in the UK are likely to be Freebmd, Ancestry and FMP. All of those sites have a predominantly white background of equal brightness to the one that GR now has. Ancestry even has light green as its "Highlighted" text which is not that different in density from the turquoise that GR now uses. Those sites do not have the public forums for expressing ones opinion that GR has but even so I have never heard of anyone saying that they won't or can't use those sites because the background is too bright or hurts their eyes.

Perhaps the reaction to this sites changes is just that, a reaction against change which we all suffer from occasionally.

Phil and Estelle, appreciate your comments. However I have to agree with many as to just WHY I should have to alter ALL the websites I am viewing to be able to even remotely be comfortable in using GR? I do not have a problem with any other site.

Using Google Chrome to open GR and IE9 to open Ancestry I had the tree pages side by side.

My tree on Ancestry is easy on the eye - even though they too have a white background. But (a) there's not the glare that I am experiencing on GR (b) the text colour is better suited to the background and (c) the tree boxes" are not the same colour as the background. It is this last one I hate the most - oh and where or where did you dream up the boy girl avatars (very juvenile and tacky looking I'm sorry).

As Rose says it seems that in your efforts to attract new business you are losing sight of your existing business. I really feel you do not listen to what you are being told at all.

I turned off my automatic renewal yesterday because while I am not myopic I do wear glasses for the PC and just cannot cope with the site as it is since yesterday

Jude

Cynthia you little gem....I have got my icons back.

suex :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D

ElizabethK

like you I have Glaucoma ...I just can't look at the screen for more than a few minutes then I have to go off...they just need to tone down the white a bit.

Comparing Genes screen to A............Screen..... this screen just needs toning down a bit A..........'s is a duller white this is a bluey white and the middle glare white .....and my darrn Icons where did they go

Elizabeth, go to Tools and click on Compatibility settings - you should find that your emoticons return. :-D

I have used "feedback" to GR and had a response re the "glare" from the screen,I have Glaucoma and it is a real problem.

Like Joy I appreciate the suggestions re altering the settings on our computers but why when there is no problems with the other sites !

(emoticons still missing)

Hi Estelle, my actual screen area is 10" x 14" approx, ( approx 19 " diagonally) which I didn't think was particularly small. I accept that my eyesight is awful, floaters in one eye etc so I may not be the 'average' user ..but the vast majority of posts suggest that even those with good eyesight find this trying.

Kense it's perfectly true that wiki and Ancestry have light backgrounds, as do many sites one looks at...I think the difference is that many people use the GR site for long periods ( yes one does with Ancestry also, but there is much more text to cut down on any glare from the background and one is going from index to records, rather than 'reading posts' as such).

It seems to me that the background is no different from sites such as Ancestry and Wikipedia. What is noticeable on the message boards is that a lot have just a nudge or one or two lines of text, followed by about ten blank lines which contribute to the whiteout effect.

Could not the message box sizes be tailored to the message length?