Re: Thin Clients

[Trevor Perry <trevor@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Booth,

That is my point. No one considers user training when we shove another field
on a screen and abbreviate everything else to fit.

If you can train people to better understand their jobs, then they will
better understand how to take advantage of the application. Then, instead of
asking for one more field on a screen (something that we in IT have trained
them to do), they are now more inclined to work with IT to understand the
business problem, rather than the "stick a field right there" approach.

In the same way, they will be more inclined to ask for information, rather
than for a "spreadsheet". Training users in their own job makes them more
productive in their own job, and I believe it makes them better to work with
in terms of the application, and for this discussion, the user interface.

Trevor


On 9/14/07 11:47 AM, "Booth Martin" <booth@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> OK, Trevor, you lost me.  I am pretty sure the final two paragraphs are
> related but I don't understand how you relate them.  Actually, maybe its
> just the last paragraph.  How are our applications decisions impacted by
> user training?  Who of us ever considers user training when we squeeze
> one more field onto the screen?
>
>
>
> Trevor Perry wrote:
> > Booth,
> >
> > There is one other interesting fact related to this.
> >
> > There are studies that show productivity improvements after training a user
> > in their own job. Usually, people learn a job from a set of notes that they
> > wrote when they were handed the job. Often, those notes were based on a set
> > of notes the previous person wrote, and so on... When a user is trained in
> > the specifics of their own job - and this includes their applications - they
> > are a better user to deal with, in terms of user interface and user
> > experience.
> >
> > Who would have thought that training someone in their own job would actually
> > have an impact on how we build application systems?
> >
> > Trevor
> >
> >
> >
> > On 9/14/07 11:20 AM, "Booth Martin" <booth@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> >
> >   
> > > I believe one other issue that you lead up to but don;t mention is
> > > training.  Over 20-30 years these green screens have evolved, just as
> > > you say, and the organization is used to them and understand exactly
> > > what is happening.  Someone new sits down to the application and its all
> > > just gobbledygook.  Training is a nightmare and a lot of comments are
> > > made like "we do it this way"  or "gosh, why is she having so much
> > > trouble?"  The training costs for some of these screens is just horrendous.
> > >     
> >
> >
> >
> >