Challenge

One in five visitors have been using Ancestry for less than one year. These visitors are significantly less satisfied than those who have been using the website longer. They experience steep learning curve and a majority end up canceling the membership within few months. Our team asked ourselves several questions: How do we help new members overcome these hurdles and continue with their discovery? How do we help them to find more about their family and satisfy their curiosity about the family stories?

“We’re all so busy. It’s going to be a lot work. It sounds exciting, but am I really ready for this commitment?”

— Ancestry.com User

Solution

After extensive user interviews with new users, we came to realize the current service isn’t meant for everyone. It became clear the subset of new members have very different goals and commitment level than our core user base. We setup a war room to share the discovery with the product team then explored light weight service concepts to address the needs of casual users. We developed the prototypes to validate with the wider user base.

Family Cards allows user to save stories and key events using simple online ‘postcard’ then collect full set of ancestors to share with the family members.
Family Timeline displays your ancestors in simple timeline view with few key events then allows to collaborate with other family members.
Lite Family Tree Builder displays your family in simplified family tree view within few steps.
Family Facts is auto generated content based on few key information about their family

These concepts provided a stepping stone to future projects and helped to drive a product roadmap based on customer needs.