Tuesday, October 9, 2007

Everyday Things

I've found in my experience that the knowledge of how things work is purely based on past experiences. When I moved into my first apartment with my best friend my second year of college, we got so confused as to how to use the stove that we called maintenance. They came right over, looked as us like we were dumb girls and lit the pilot light. We had never been in a situation at our parents house where the pilot light needed to be lit upon using because they were new models. Needless to say, we felt stupid and went right out to buy a toaster oven. Plus, the handful of times we tried to use the oven that first month the smoke detector went off. It went unused for the remainder of the lease.
Some doors push out, some you need to pull, some revolve, some slide. It is a consistent issue where at times-- due to not paying attention or a state of frazzledness, we tend to forget. When walking with friends or strangers, I have been in the situation where "the door is locked!" when I simply was doing it wrong. Also, embarrassing. The same goes for bathroom stalls-- in interesting states, I have felt I was stuck at one point or another.
Websites can be challenging at times to use. My most frustrating example lately has been the Blackboard sight for my women's health class. There are a series of different links and modules and portions to the website. Some tabs we need for lecture, 2 we need for lab but none of us figured that out prior to our first lab class. Essentially, they had 120 people in a state of confusion due to poor website organization.
Also, when we clicked on links for various reasons, we were not taken back to where we had started a second ago, yet had to go back to the first Blackboard website and start the process of getting to the lab handouts etc. all over again. The few times I have failed to turn in an assignment was due to the confusion. The syllabus is in one place, the schedule in another and so forth.
Women's Health Website
When I was younger I made three attempts one night to make a banana cream pie for a dinner party my mother was having. The first step of how to make the filling was on the first page with the rest of the steps on the second. My first two attempts, I missed the first step because I wasn't looking at the bottom of the page, I just assumed the directions started on the next. The fact I am a terrible cook comes into play here, but if they would have just pressed return and sent it to the next page with the rest of the directions, I would have gotten it right the first time. Needless to say, the third pie wasn't spectacular either-- once I figured the direction thing out, but like I said I am a bad cook.
Another issue I have been running into lately with websites is the directions for how to process SAF-B information for my rugby team. I never had any idea of how things worked with student life and SAF-B due to their confusing nature of how to get money, allocate money and then get reimbursed. Because of this, we've had a lack of funding this year, forcing us to raise our team dues.
Saf-B/Student Life
I am a firm believer in user friendly information, which is an issue I face in my everyday life trying to make that aviable to my rugby team (do you know how hard it is to explain that sport to someone with no experience?!) as well as my peers.
When trying to make my own website, I came across this problem, trying to figure how how to make it user friendly and workable.
Women's Rugby
Come on, make things easier for those who don't understand.