Sneak Peek: A Goal per Page
In the Projects section of The Family History Guide, Goals are the foundation piece. They contain the essential Choices, 
Steps, and resources needed for solid instruction.
One challenge that arises, especially as more content is added to The Family History Guide, is the length of some of the Project pages. For example, Project 1: Family Tree (in the Family Search Learning path) has 14 Goals and is quite long to scroll through. To minimize scrolling, there are links in the header area to take you to each Goal, but it still may seem like a lot of content for one page.
One Goal per Page
We will soon be introducing a one-goal-per-page approach for the Projects in The Family History Guide. No content will be lost; each Goal will simply be hosted on a separate page. This makes individual Goal pages easier to scroll through, and new content can be added without making the page seem overly long. Also, the header links will become the essential means for switching from Goal to Goal within a Project, instead of scrolling. Below is an example of the header links found in Project 1: Family Tree (FS). In the new format, each link would go to a different page, with the newest page replacing the earlier one in the browser view.
More Space to Breathe
Another adjustment we’re making is to add some “breathing space” around text on the page. The horizontal line width will be shortened a bit to improve ease of reading, and a bit of vertical space will be added around headings, articles, and videos. Below is a brief example of the new format:
Online Samples
You can see how this all works in several demo pages that we have posted online. To get started, go to https://www.thefhguide.com/project-1-family-tree01.html This is the starting page for Project 1, and it has only Goal 1 in it. To get to the other Goals in the Project, simply click the Goal links in the header area.
Note : There are 14 demo pages, one for each Goal in Project 1. These demo pages are not yet tied into the main menu system of The Family History Guide. So if you navigate outside the demo pages and want to return to them, you’ll need to use the back button on your browser or click the main demo link shown above.
When Is It Coming?
We expect to have all the Goals in The Family History Guide, including all the Country pages, converted to the new format this coming week. There will be a follow-up blog about it a week from now, to review the changes for everyone. Meanwhile enjoy the demo pages!
This change will both improve the readability of the text material but also improve the instructional design by making it easier to move around and focus on a specific topic. Kudos to the development team.
This is going to be a game changer for many people. This change of having one goal per page will cut down on the feeling that some have that this is just too much for me at this time. It is like seeing just one bite at a time when trying to eat an entire elephant. Good work team!