New Look Scotland's People Website Coming 3rd September 2024

[WilmaM]

Scotland's people have made the following announcement:

Scotland’s People will launch a refreshed website at midday on 3rd September.

The new website will have a fresh and modern feel. It’s been designed to enhance user experience and accessibility. Searching the records will also be simpler and quicker.

The site is compliant with WCAG 2.2 guidelines and has a double AA standard, which means it’s easily accessible for all users.

This allows a wider and more diverse audience to explore their Scottish heritage.

Customers can log in with their current details and previous saved information will continue to be available.

To prepare for these changes, the website will be unavailable from 00.01 on Sunday, 1st September, to 12.00 on Tuesday, 3rd September.

https://www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk/arti ... yrpauH3wPQ

So do all your urgent researching before then, as we'll have to endure 36 hours without!

[garibaldired]

Thanks for that information, Wilma.

Let’s hope it really is easier to search

[WilmaM]

I finally got in to the new site at 12:20.
sadly first impressions aren't that great.
a. It's running very slowly - could be everyone has jumped on though!
b. the 'side bar' for refining results has gone - you have to keep scrolling back to the top and re-click 'refine results' [then wait] before you can alter year/area etc, or even just check the parameters you entered.
c. the fonts and spaces are just too big , I'm constantly scrolling to see the next part of the page. [I appreciate that, that may be part of the ease of accessibility for all options, but it's annoying!]
d. the front page search bar isn't visible even in full screen .

On the positive side:
My log-in details were still there
my credits also still useable
and my saved documents seem to be intact.

Ho hum I expect we'll get used to it in time but I am very disappointed on my first visit.

There are still an awful lot of error pages springing up too. Like viewing the previous page of results grr.

[ninatoo]

Thanks for the heads up Wilma!

I hate it!! Not instinctive, and not easy to find what I want, ie OPR vs Statutory Records.

Why do they insist on fixing things that aren't broken?

[Falkyrn]

Thanks for the heads up Wilma!

I hate it!! Not instinctive, and not easy to find what I want, ie OPR vs Statutory Records.

Why do they insist on fixing things that aren't broken?

I agree. It is not intuitive at all and needs two (or sometimes) three mouse clicks to get to where you want.

[WilmaM]

Sadly after weeks of usage I'm still not impressed - glad I'm not alone.

I've had to reduce the text/zoom to 50% to have everything on my screen [though it's now a single middle column!]

What's even more annoying is the lack of info on the page tabs - I've no idea which one I've opened for Birth, Death or Marriage searching.

Even Find My Past seems easier in comparison.

[Forfarian]

The more I use the new version the less I like it. It takes more clicking, more scrolling, more time, and more Repetitive Strain Injury, than the previous version to get to a result.

The gloomy photos are just a waste of space, and make it necessary to do a lot more clicking and scrolling. I see that they do not feature in the phobile version, so why was it thought necessary to inflict them on desktop users? And if they can design a page to display differently on a phobile from on a desktop, why not just go the whole hog and use all the available space instead of squashing everything into less than half the width of a desktop screen?

The home page has a huge banner saying 'Explore your Scottish Heritage' but if you click on the wording it does nothing. The actual active menu is in tiny print in the line above. And when you go to 'Search the Records' there's a similar non-interactive banner taking up a huge amount of space. On my screen there's about 11 inches of useable space below the blue line at the top, and 6½ inches of this are inactive banners and photographs - that is more than half of the visible page wasted.

If I zoom out to the point where all the useful links are visible at the same time, the type is so small that I can't actually read it, and about 5 of the available 11 inches are taken up with inactive banners and photographs. I wonder how many users have actually noticed that there are three rows of categories of information?

I participated in various user focus groups while the 2016 revamp was being done, and we argued very strongly against wasting space with pretty pictures and graphics. That was heeded in 2016, but not this time round.