Re: i do not understand?

a most excellent idea!

----- Original Message -----
From: Marja-Riitta Koivunen <marja@w3.org>
To: Robert Neff <robneff@home.com>; <w3c-wai-eo@w3.org>
Cc: wai-gl <w3c-wai-gl@w3.org>
Sent: Wednesday, July 28, 1999 6:46 AM
Subject: Re: i do not understand?


> A lot of this sounds like the problems when first starting to promote the
> importance of usability. Maybe it would be good to gather some successful
> cases of how these accessibility problems are/were tackled in companies to
> somewhere to help other people with similar problems and also to give
> feedback to working groups.
>
> For instance, some beginning solutions with usability were often to invite
> developers (and managers) to give input for usability test cases and them
> show them how the users are struggling (often things that had been too
hard
> to change for months were changed in five minutes during the break between
> the test users).
>
>   Marja
>
> At 11:13 PM 7/27/99 -0700, Robert Neff wrote:
> >to share some experiences as we gear up to support a large scale
e-commerce
> >and interactive site...
> >
> >we are implementing a web based configuration management tool in a very
> >rapid application development environment.  we are testing and
implementing
> >this in our large office that has programmers, coders, writers, graphic
> >artist, multimedia types, technical manager, and just plain mangers.
Easy,
> >right? Not really, i now have more grey hair.
> >
> >we had powerpoint slides, text, instructions and documents.  it took us
> >three to four weeks to get everyone in a room to show the concept.  tried
> >marketing earlier and people gave me time but were more interested in
> >telling me why they could not support it  or why they they did not have
> >time.  even had upper management support to move forward.
> >
> >our heavy deliverable schedule and customer support just did not permit a
> >group meeting or individual training.  i spent more time explaining roles
> >and concepts and trying to walk people through this.  so we implemented
> >before we had all the materials and forced people to use CM.  we also
held
> >their hands and provided a lot of nuturing.  they also were not using the
> >guidleines we gave them.
> >
> >some people just did not want to understand, because they cannot
comprehend
> >why they need it.  some people do not want to do it because it gives up
> >control and impacts their abilitiy to deliver.  some people want to learn
> >but do not understand the language and are afraid and confused.  To win
> >these confused types, we had to reword everything and pay quarter
everytime
> >we used an acronym or technical term.  Turns out the lead CM manager and
> >trainer who was explaining everything had no idea he was losing the
> >non-technical folks. neither did i and i understood it.
> >
> >The programmers and coders caught on quick and learned the process.  Some
> >want to learn but didnt have time.  still some refuse.  we found some
could
> >beat the system after the fact and had to address these issues.  we
caught
> >that in quality checks.
> >
> >Our office was one heck of a testbed!  When we deploy the intranet and
> >assign coordinators and responsibilties to offices and larger sites, we
are
> >dealing with people who do not know HTML and have never been in a web
> >production environment or software engineering environment.  So by now
you
> >are wondering how we could have done things better given a lack of
resources
> >to prepare and no time to train. We just had to do it or else it would
have
> >never been done.  Then you say good luck implementing the process in the
> >field where no one uses HTML, just web authoring tools.
> >
> >Hmmm, does this sound similar to the guideline's path?  well hope so,
> >because this is our environment and the biggest barrier i found was
> >communication.  Technical types do not speak the same language amongst
> >themselves and even far worse, they do not know how to communicate to the
> >non-technical folks who are the foundation for most web shops in the
> >government.
> >
> >thanks for reading this far and that is why i am pleading to make these
> >understandable and easy to find so we can accomplish our goal - universal
> >design!  based upon experience <smile>  and the no-technical types are
> >taking down my picture form their wall - they found someone else to throw
> >darts at!
> >
> >rob
> >

Received on Wednesday, 28 July 1999 10:17:53 UTC