Confronting Friction & Unlocking New Audiences
Through research and product analysis, we uncovered that user engagement was sporadic and highly dependent on emotionally charged life events—weddings, funerals, births, etc.—rather than habitual usage. More critically, the onboarding process was a major blocker, with high drop-off rates due to complex inputs and unclear next steps. Additionally, in the rapidly shifting landscape of AI, there was no clear model for what genealogy should look like in the LLM era. Our insight? There’s an emerging audience of Locked-Out Users—those who abandoned the platform due to confusion or complexity—and New Explorers, AI-native users who expect immediacy, clarity, and context-rich storytelling. These insights framed the opportunity for reinvention.
Designing a Conversational Framework for Discovery
To address these challenges, we introduced a new dual-column design system rooted in clarity and flexibility. The left-hand panel mirrors the conversational UI patterns of tools like ChatGPT and Claude—giving users a natural language entry point to explore their lineage, ask questions, and receive contextual guidance. The right-hand column becomes a dynamic canvas, flexing to present interactive modules: timelines, family trees, document previews, and narrative storycards. This design structure not only reduced friction but allowed us to build a more emotionally compelling and guidance-driven experience—one where family history becomes less of a search, and more of a story unfolding.
