19 January 2014

On Reading Directions

I'll be honest. I didn't read the complete set of suggestions on Ancestry.com's results page yesterday when it told me I got too many hits (read the post here).

Ancestry.com requires that users enter in at least three characters in any name box. My search did not do that.

When the results page told me there were too many results for my search, I glossed over the suggesions. I shouldn't have done this and I've used Ancestry.com enough to know that three characters are required (years ago there was a workaround that they've since fixed).

My problem was (and still is) that there aren't too many results to my search. My intuition told me this and FamilySearch's interface confirmed it.

I should have remembered the three character requirement. I'll admit that.

Ancestry.com should have an error message that accurately states the problem.