Collecting Your Sample

[Jim Barrett]

There use to be instructions, maybe a vedio, telling people how to collect their DNA sample. If it is on the new "Learning Center" I can't find it. Of course there are many things that were in FAQ that were easy to find that I can no longer find.

Back to my point. https://www.familytreedna.com/learn/...-instructions/ says there is a vedio but it fails to provide a link. It might be more helpful if the link was provided. We might learn more!

[efgen]

Scroll further down the page, there are screen shots from the video along with instructions

I'll try to find out what happened to the actual video.

Elise

[Jim Barrett]

Thanks again for your help!

[dna]

I am tempted...

After trying to guide testers over the phone more than once, more than twice..., I am tempted to order a cheapest test as Mr. Instructional Video and pay a ( wedding? ) videographer to shoot an instructional video...

I have potential testers all over the world, so it would be a silent era movie with title cards and piano music in the background...

OK, seriously. This does not need to be a million dollar commercial, but I hope that FTDNA knows what problems people frequently encounter and what failures they see when receiving kits...

P.S. If anybody reads the thread, there could be two versions of the video. One with scraping by the tester herself or himself. And another one with somebody else in disposable gloves doing it on somebody else.

[travers]

There is an instructional video on youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AN07Adpu7Bs

[Jim Barrett]

Thanks For the Youtube Link

FTDNA tells us they have one, but they lost the link to it.

What are the two most important things FTDNA's customers must do? 1) place an order and 2) collect a sample. So what do they do as they improve things? 1) minimize the upgrade button on myFTDNA web pages and 2) loose the link to collecting samples.

[dna]

Travers, thank you for the link to the original (as can be inferred from the screenshots) video.

However, I am not going to use it, as it might be confusing:

1. it is from 2009 and the presenter mentions that one would “get three, two or three of the swabs”;
2. it starts with a disclaimer that it neither made by nor endorsed by FTDNA...

Also I would like to see a video that places an emphasis on:

• duration of swabbing;
• interval between swabbings;
• not eating or drinking;
• sterility etc.

So far, I am getting my samples from very old people, and most of them are without any living descendants, thus DNA quality is of utmost importance to us.

[dna]

Why a wedding videographer?

These guys know that there are no retakes...

[Jim Barrett]

In mid July I opend this thread.

On Oct. 8 I sent this message to the Help Desk:
Where is the link to the video mentioned on this page?
https://www.familytreedna.com/learn/...-instructions/

I'm trying to sell a customer on a kit and we can't find the link. The customer isn't impressed.

On Oct. 10 I received this reply:
Dear James Barrett,
Tank you for your email. The engineering team is working on getting the link corrected. The video can be found on youtube here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AN07Adpu7Bs.

I wonder how long it takes the engineering team to put a known link onto a known page.

[efgen]

Jim,

Engineering is actually not to blame for this. We're in the process of transitioning responsibility for the Learning Center content internally, so some needed updates have been on hold.

However, I just looked into this issue, thinking it would be a very simple fix. Turns out the link was there in the code, formatted correctly, and the video should have been embedded on the page -- but it wasn't showing up.

So I just spent an hour troubleshooting and finally found an alternate method of embedding videos that seems to have fixed it.

Frankly, I'm still not sure why the original link wasn't working correctly, since what we had matched the documentation on embedding YouTube videos using the original method.

I'm giving you all this detail just to illustrate that what we sometimes think should be a very simple fix isn't always as simple as it appears.

The good news is that it's finally fixed And I do sincerely apologize that it took us so long to work on this.

We still need to make some other updates to the page, such as the text about return postage -- that will be done in the near future.

Elise

[dna]

Now the (potential) customers see three addresses pointing to the same video:

• http://goo.gl/nQWnEj (from the instructions sent with kits)
• https://www.familytreedna.com/learn/...-instructions/
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AN07Adpu7Bs

I know very well why, but... then I had thought that Family Tree DNA should have their own quick links, so the kit instructions could include something like

Visit this link for a video on how to use your test kit: http://ftdna.com/nQWnEj

I know that it would be 3 characters more, but way more professional.

P.S. Elise, would it be a problem if the page sent to the customers, the one entitled Before You Swab, was also available on line (even as a PDF)? And both pages referenced each other?

[Jim Barrett]

Jim,

Engineering is actually not to blame for this. We're in the process of transitioning responsibility for the Learning Center content internally, so some needed updates have been on hold.

However, I just looked into this issue, thinking it would be a very simple fix. Turns out the link was there in the code, formatted correctly, and the video should have been embedded on the page -- but it wasn't showing up.

So I just spent an hour troubleshooting and finally found an alternate method of embedding videos that seems to have fixed it.

Frankly, I'm still not sure why the original link wasn't working correctly, since what we had matched the documentation on embedding YouTube videos using the original method.

I'm giving you all this detail just to illustrate that what we sometimes think should be a very simple fix isn't always as simple as it appears.

The good news is that it's finally fixed And I do sincerely apologize that it took us so long to work on this.

We still need to make some other updates to the page, such as the text about return postage -- that will be done in the near future.

Elise

As for Engineering, I was reporting the reply I received. It would be nice if we could get straight answers.

I don't understand why you spent all of that time when what was there could have been replaced with the link I included. It worked. Some 50 years ago IBM taught us KISS! The suggestion still works today.

I am glad the issue was resolved. Based on DNA's message I'm not sure how well it was resolved. I haven't checked.

[efgen]

I don't understand why you spent all of that time when what was there could have been replaced with the link I included. It worked. Some 50 years ago IBM taught us KISS! The suggestion still works today.

Yes, I could have simply added a link to the video, which would forward the person to the video on the YouTube website.

However, the video was originally embedded in the page so it could be viewed without going to another website, so I wanted to get that working again. We're planning to add more embedded instructional videos to the Learning Center in the near future.

Elise