Well-written software can be intuitive and full of AI-like checks that are invisible to the user.
"What is the date of your birth?"
How hard is it to have software that accept input in multiple formats?
7/4/76
-or-
July 4, 1976
-or-
07/04/1976
-or-
04-07-76
-or-
.....
and to add a data validation query before proceeding
"Did you mean July 4, 1976? O Yes O No"
Government software lets you make an input it will not accept and then let you fill out another 6 pages of the form before bouncing you on the "verification"...while refusing to tell you which input it dislikes.
And why do on-line forms lock-up so frequently? And why don't they put the data you enter into buffer or auto-save so when you have to CNTL-ALT-DEL out of the program you don't lose all of your inputs?
Private vs public sector
When a business in the private sector writes hostile software it goes out of business.
When an agency in the public sector releases hostile software, frustrated users are fined or sent to prison.
While solid software is not trivial to write, the requirements are not a mystery. I suspect that some of our government overlords like the ability to hold capricious and arbitrary penalties over us unwashed-masses.
OR at least specify the format for the data:
ReplyDeleteDD/MM/YYY or
day, Month. year
The problem with all things government is that there are no set standards....If you are shite, then there is one standard, but if you are black, or a woman, or both, or hispanic, etc, then there are lower standards of performance...even for vendors of software.
And no one gets fired for poor performance.
Tell me you’ve been filling out a government online form, without telling me you’ve been filling out a government online form…
ReplyDelete"When a business in the private sector writes hostile software it goes out of business"
ReplyDeleteEr, no ... If your name is Microsoft you just bill the users of your software for being your alpha and beta testers, and only occasionally get to a sufficiently functional product to warrant the cost.
But, in a lot of cases that's true, and usually comes down to discipline at the requirements and development stages to avoid the mission creep that seems to be an inherent"feature " of any public sector project - software or physical infrastructure.
Civil Service is where incompetence goes to live. This includes programmers and web masters.
ReplyDeleteI've sat in too many technical development meetings with software people to ever fully trust any software I haven't written myself - govt or private. "Features"
ReplyDeleteeducational software is no better. The quiz or test wants an answer in a SPECIFIC format that isn't documented before the question is presented. If you enter a correct answer with a different layout you get the question wrong. Drives my daughter into tears...
ReplyDeleteThe issue does indeed also come up in commercial software. Good luck reserving a ticket from the U.S. for a domestic flight in Japan. After the third strike, with no warning about my "mistake" from the English-language software, I had my wife make the reservation from her side of the Pacific.
ReplyDelete