To the common user, it’s as easy as adding a name in a field and clicking “ok”, but when you really break it down, the ability to add and manage relationships of friends and family on the Jewish Historical Monument Community site is a lot more than just that. This archive of Jewish people living in the Netherlands during the Second World War opened up their social network in order to let any user connect any profile to anyone, even if it had nothing to do with their personal network. The reason to break down this wall? Genealogy. The importance of having the knowledge that Person A is the great, great family member of Person B allowed the greater mass to fill in the holes that the historians could not.

That’s where this flow chart comes in. Nothing says time wasted online like “genealogy”. In order to convince users to make these connections, we needed it to be a two to three click process max, unlike most genealogy sites which ask as many questions as your run-of-the-mill online matchmaking service. Pearing down the when, where and what to ask is a great exercise before designing any kind of form. It can also show you where unforeseen problems will arrive before you’ve designed enough pop up boxes to shake a stick at.