Engaging Teenagers in Family History Work

Improvements in technology have led to great improvements in efficiency of genealogical work.  Despite these changes, teenagers and young adults (age groups that are generally experienced with computers) are usually not participating in family history work.  Two major design aspects will encourage teenagers to use these family history programs.  First, users need to have positive experiences from the very moment they start using the program.  A good interface that gives blatantly obvious positive feedback when the user does something right will cause them to enjoy their experience.  The second design aspect is sharing the program on social network platforms.  Given a genealogy program recommended on Facebook by a friend, or a genealogy program recommended on a church website, most teenagers are going to be exposed to the program posted to Facebook.  Social network posts about the program will encourage more teenagers to use the program.  Both of these points (good user interface and easy social network sharing) will encourage teenagers to put their technology skills to good use in the world of family history.