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There are many ways to gauge satisfaction with a new computer system, but when the people who have to use it show up for work wearing red and declare it "Code Red" day, you probably don't need to bother with a survey.
That's exactly what's scheduled to happen this Thursday in the city of Hamilton, Ontario, where government workers plan to protest the one-year anniversary of a controversial new computer system.
Ontario's Social Assistance Management System (SAMS), installed a year ago this week by the province's Ministry of Community and Social Services, was supposed be a more efficient replacement for its outdated case management system.
It hasn't quite turned out that way.
Several tales of woe, but no deeper dive on causes, like scope creep.
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Think Your IT Project is a Disaster? These Will Make You Feel Better
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Grelb's Reminder:
Eighty percent of all people consider themselves to be above
average drivers.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by jdccdevel on Thursday November 12 2015, @09:11PM
I've seen these sorts of headaches before several times.
SAP migrations have a particularly bad reputation for this, when companies want to move from their old Terminal style applications to a more "modern" user interface.
Mainly, the problems stem from:
- Replacing software that has grown organically with the business, highly custom with poorly documented workflow. (This is really hard to replicate.)
- Terminal software is fast and minimalistic, everything can be done from the keyboard which is VERY FAST. There is no UI to get in a power users way, and fewer irrelevant distracting options.
- "Modern" software tries to eliminate the need for software training, which makes the software slow, clumsy, and frustrating for people using it all the time.
Software training is very undervalued in office situations. Terminal based software requires a lot of training to be productive. (Especially in comparison to Office for example, where anyone can be somewhat productive with almost no training at all.) SAP and similar products all try to eliminate the need for extensive training, but just end up being counter-intuitive, clumsy and slow, especially for power users who use the software every day.
Since the workflow of the software is often a imperfect match for the business, it is also frustrating for infrequent users who don't have the time to learn to work around all the quirks to do what they want to get done.
What sometimes gets overlooked is that a lot of training isn't a bad thing when you're going to spend significant time using the application, especially if it means you will be able to use it efficiently. Software for CAD, Graphic Design, Programming and things like that are treated like that with lots of keyboard shortcuts and macros optimized for speed. Even in applications that work well, that tends to get overlooked for other software, which will inevitably slow people down.
Slower software means that people can get less done, which means their workload increases, which makes everyone frustrated.
As a tangent, Microsoft is guilty of this in a lot of ways too with their Operating System UI design. In an effort to make things "easier" to use, they hide a lot of settings that technicians need to access regularly deep into the UI, often in unintuitive locations. Settings that used to be easily accessible (2 or three clicks) are now deeply buried behind 5 or 6 layers of vaguely worded menu and other options for no good reason or purpose.
I think this is one of the reasons why admins like the Linux CLI so much. It can be clear, concise, fast, and it doesn't often change without good reason. It's also much easier to tell someone over the phone to type something into a Command Line than it is to try to remember where in a particular UI version the exact option you need someone to click on is hidden.
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Thursday November 12 2015, @09:50PM
I'm pretty sure you could substitute Oracle for SAP in your example. Based on the amount of whining my users do when talking about our Oracle set up.
Fortunately for me I don't have to support it.
(Score: 5, Funny) by gawdonblue on Friday November 13 2015, @04:54AM
Except when Poettering is involved.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 13 2015, @06:04AM
It you don't want weird changes between releases, BSD may be for you.
BSD is designed. Linux is grown. [over-yonder.net]
It you want the innovation that trying a lot of new things brings, you are going to have to try things like esound and systemd once in a while. BTW, I when sound starts acting up on my Debian machines, I just remove esd with no ill effects.
(Score: 2) by darkfeline on Saturday November 14 2015, @01:49PM
I think there was a study made when GUIs were first introduced that found that office workers who started working on CLIs became competent at about the same rate as office workers who started working on GUIs. Kudos if someone finds the study.
The only reason why GUIs are easier to use is that everyone is familiar with using them and the common idioms with their use (text fields, buttons, sliders, menus, etc., and for CLIs, the prompt, the help or ? command, the q or quit command, etc.). If everyone were familiar with CLIs instead, I guarantee they would find GUIs harder to use.
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