[PLUG-TALK] Fighting the fear of computers

Keith Lofstrom keithl at kl-ic.com
Tue Feb 8 22:20:42 UTC 2005


There is a meta-problem we need to think about in order to have
more success rolling out open source to the people around us. 
I'd call it "computer disappointment burnout".  

I set up a wiki for a local medical society my wife belongs to.  
Wikis are ridiculously easy to use - probably much easier to
figure out than a new-patient form at a doctor's office.  Last
night, I had 15 minutes to show a room full of 20 doctors how to
add text to a wiki.  Okay, so the venue was awful, we all were 
tired, etc., but I failed in my mission.  Because every one of
these doctors was CONVINCED that ANYTHING to do with computers
was TOO HARD.  Even typing text into the text box of a wiki,
hitting "PREVIEW" and then hitting "SAVE".  

With more time, I would have taken a "volunteer from the audience"
and ran them through the creation of a simple page.  On the way
home afterwards,  I did a lot of shoulda-woulda-coulda ;  I had
prepared for the wrong audience.

But the fact remains that highly intelligent doctors are frightened
of doing even the simplest new things with computers.  Some of it is
fear of failure - doctors do NOT like to make mistakes (they have
hundreds of opportunities daily) - but a lot of it is a long history
of disappointing software.  These people are thoroughly convinced that
they will fail if they try something new.  Hence they don't buy new
software or equipment - much less try out Linux.  As a result, there
is a lot of familiar but broken crap out there, the market is much
smaller than it could be, there are fewer technology jobs, etc.  

There are many ways to design software so that it is less prone to
user error, and more recoverable after mistakes.   I'm not talking
"user friendly", which is usually just a buzzword for glitz and
chattiness - lipstick on a pig.  Well designed software is transparent,
intuitive, and task-oriented .  It should always have something like
a "test" key and an "undo" key.  Error messages should be guides to
action, not petulant (or worse, cryptic) complaints.  Etc.  It may
take years of well designed software before people start trusting
us again.

Meanwhile, I will just have to work with the folks at that meeting,
one by one, until they see for themselves that wikis are a simple
to use, non-threatening, and powerful way for them to make their
own web pages.  That will be one small step towards empowering users,
and fighting the fear of failure.  This mess wasn't made in a day,
and it won't be cleaned up by one presentation, either.

Keith

-- 
Keith Lofstrom          keithl at keithl.com         Voice (503)-520-1993
KLIC --- Keith Lofstrom Integrated Circuits --- "Your Ideas in Silicon"
Design Contracting in Bipolar and CMOS - Analog, Digital, and Scan ICs



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