Discovering Your Relatives
— connecting you to your family with genetics
— length & type
6 months
Product Design
Interaction Design
Visual Design
— role
Product Designer
— team
1 Product Manager, 1 Product Designer, 1 DNA Scientist, 1 UX Researcher, 4 Full Stack Engineers
— context
AncestryDNA provides a multi-layered experience to discover where you come from and who you are genetically. From finding DNA matches to understanding your ethnicity, the amount and richness of information to your personal discovery is vast, always evolving, and often difficult to parse.
— problem to solve
Ancestry customers interact with the product in a behavior triggered by a curiosity spark. (see image) This spark drives the first interaction and creates continuity for the next.
AncestryDNA allows users to discover their ethnic background and gives access to a database full of DNA matches, your genetic relatives, creating your DNA Story. However, once a customer gets their genetic makeup, the information overload and lack of action make it challenging to continue this loop of discovery, especially for novices to DNA.
DNA matches are the gateway to understanding genetic relationships, and communities derived from ethnic groups to build a family tree. DNA matches had to potential to be the conduit for user re-engagement into the DNA product. We had the opportunity to get users into this flow quicker and easier than what the product offered by leveraging the information into digestible actions that increased product usage and user retention.
— customer insights
"I don't know who they are nor what any of this means. What is a centimorgan (cM)?"
From DNA matches, users could see their familial relationship, the shared DNA segments with another person, and shared ethnic regions yet this meant nothing to users. On average, an AncestryDNA user will get around 50,000 to 80,000 matches. Once they got their results, less experienced users struggled to take the next step because they didn't recognize anyone and the volume was too overwhelming to understand the science thus abandoning the product.
How might we empower users to discover their relatives and encourage human connection?
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As a user help me identify my DNA matches so I can continue my path of personal discovery.
The DNA Match Assignment provides users with a more genuine way to visualize their relationship to and connect with newfound relatives.
— concept
With a refreshed information architecture of the page, users can assign a parental and genetic relationship to their DNA matches. They can navigate new information displays such as shared DNA percentages, estimated relationships, and more to intentionally and efficiently discover new family members and history.
The feature was released on a rollout basis to 15 million Ancestry users over the course of 6 months finalized in the first quarter of 2021.
In Detail
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Demo Video
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— process
For 4 months, we followed an agile, iterative approach to concept building. We explored different methods of information visualization and family recognition patterns to test weekly with 5 Ancestry customers recruited live from Ethnio ranging from novice to expert users. We iterated until we identified the key touchpoints in the user experience that helped users recognize genetic relatives with the assistance of science while following the product's established mental models and interaction standards. These concepts were presented in design prototypes and later technical POCs.
In order to provide a holistic experience to DNA Match discovery, the team had to make a series of improvements broken into different milestones:
- 1st milestone: allow users to see new explanations of scientific terms relating to shared DNA segments, Summer 2020
- 2nd milestone: refine the layout architecture of the DNA matches list with common language terms to reduce cognitive strain, Fall 2020 (see image)
- 3rd milestone: release DNA match assignment flow, Winter 2021
Test Explorations
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— Prompt possible relationships inside the 1:1 match profile pages
+ Tree chart helped understand distant relationships
- Too hidden to jumpstart action early in their journey
— Visualize matches through a family tree and parental clusters
- Requires default mother or father group to work
- Estimation explanation simplified DNA science
— Surface relevant matches in batches
+ Mobile first
- Layout limited crucial information at a glance for core (expert) users
— learnings
Through multiple rounds of concept testing, we set out to investigate what information was confusing or helpful and how we could encourage them to interact with a match to continue their journey of discovery. As we explored match relationship assignment flows, users resonated positively with the simplified breakdown of information and Ancestry's aid to make connections between matches for them:
"This is good information (the % of shared DNA). Group by family side, I like that. I like seeing who is close family and extended family - I’ll focus on the close family first."
"I think it's building my family tree."
The improvements integrated into this feature launch were also published in scientific journals by the genetic science community.
— improvements + iterations
Learning about your family genetic history can be just as enriching as traumatizing. As the feature reached customers, the team created informational resources for users to understand and process unexpected results.
Assigning a relationship is the first step of a long journey to interacting with a match. The ultimate goal is to aid users build their family tree through genetic data when historical records don't suffice. We explored concepts that allowed users to keep building their connections through the relationship assignment of a single match by creating groups of matches once a match was assigned a parental side to show the interconnections and help parse through the large volume. (see image)
*These designs date before Ancestry's 2021 rebrand.
— Given the nature of this project, further insights and design process can only be revealed in an interview setting.
