Friday, August 29, 2003

Computer Adjustments

This has been a week of adjustments to new computer programs at the college I work at. It did not go well for most. The new records system does not seem to have been created by people who efficiently want to get the job done. Records are hard to access in the sense that it takes a bunch of clicks and the filling in of three to four blanks to accomplish what one would expect to do in a couple of clicks. The pathways are not those that those of limited computer ability would follow. To make it all worse, following some quick training, the system was expected to work under high pressure get the job done fast, fast, fast conditions. It failed. Under more relaxed conditions I found it worked falwlessly subjec to its ineffcient structure. The result is that by not making it easy for the non-computer folks [not me] it will languish when it could have been a real triumph.

Why do people do things in this backward way? We have come so far in making computers friendly, we emphasize it; then some just go the other way and spoil the work.

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