Why is FreeBMD changing?

Changes for Researchers (users) in 2021

A growing number of users are accessing the web through phones and tablets, rather than laptops and larger computers — they expect an interface that looks good and works well on a small screen. We want to make the website more accessible to everyone, regardless of ability. We have therefore been making changes to the colours used, the language used and are attempting to achieve the WCAG AA accessibility standard (opens in new tab).

We’ve been working with user experience volunteers to design and test a new interface that is fit for purpose in 2021. It’s our aim to develop a new website which is ‘as good as’ the existing FreeBMD website (FreeBMD1) in almost every area, and we’ll then move forward with implementing those features from FreeBMD1 which are still needed.

The new interface will:

work well on mobiles and tablets (used by a growing number of people)
make many of the powerful tools on FreeBMD easier to find and use
reduce the number of clicks you have to make to get to what you want
make it easier for us to update Help and information about FreeBMD using a basic HTML interface
make FreeBMD look and feel part of the ‘family’ with FreeCEN and FreeREG
use the same underlying code as FreeCEN and FreeREG, allowing new features created in one to be introduced to other sites more quickly
have two test sites, allowing multiple volunteers to work on the site at the same time
potentially increase our revenue from advertising (without compromising your experience of using FreeBMD)

In the future, we want to tackle some issues in searching, including:

place: knowing where a district is in terms of registration districts can be difficult for some, especially for people who are not resident in the UK. Conversely, knowing what churches might hold records that relate to a birth marriage or death with a civil registration can be difficult
an overwhelming search page: it can be difficult to know which of the many fields you should fill in, in order to be able to identify the person you are seeking, but not rule them out due to something not being recorded quite as you might have expected
powerful tools that can help you with your research are sometimes overlooked — we want to make them easier to discover, and easier to use

Changes for Transcribers, Syndicate Coordinators and other FreeBMD volunteers

We’re not planning on changing the database or tools used on FreeBMD. The new site will, however, become the place to sign up as a volunteer on FreeBMD. New (and existing) volunteers will be able to log into FreeBMD2 and, increasingly, find that the documentation they need and software downloads are available there. We’re making this move because it is much easier for small updates to text to be made quickly on FreeBMD2: they can be made as soon as the need arrives and the change is approved.

Additional developments for Researchers

We’re planning to have one or two new tools for Researchers available at the launch of FreeBMD2, and add to this over the coming years.