At 09:25 2004/03/25, Mark Merchant wrote:
so what happens when some joker puts mail from the company president in the spam folder? or like my users, can't remember what the difference between spam & ham is? so they put the porn stuff in the ham mail box? ( could be intentional i suppose ;)
we could never figure out a way to do this that wasn't extremely vulnerable to human error.
This hits on a sore point for me, so I apologize in advance for the rant that follows :)
In forums like this one, I very often see administrators put down their users (or "lusers" as many refer to them) and suggest that these people aren't bright enough to figure out how something technological works. Many of the administrators that I've met are condescending and patronizing to their users, as if they were dealing with four-year-old children. The end result of having such low expectations of their users, unfortunately, is that those users never set their sights any higher.
If you're going to introduce a new tool or technology to your users, you can't just drop it in place and expect them to figure it out on their own--no matter what level of expertise they're at. You have to invest some time to educate them about the changes you've made, whether you do this in a presentation for the staff, a printed hand-out, a hands-on walk-through, or some combination of the above. An e-mail announcement that says "I added feature X, any questions?" is *not* enough. Teaching is just another hat you have to wear as an administrator.
It's about setting expectation levels, really. If you leave your users feeling like you're a godlike wizard and they're just simple fools, they won't *try* to figure anything out. They'll know that you don't trust them to do simple things, so they'll throw their hands up whenever they get out of their comfort zone, and that makes work for *you*. They'll be so terrified of "breaking" things that they won't dare use any new features until they've been walked through the process patiently. By all means, give your users the help they need, but the higher you set your expectations, the more they'll work to meet them.
Robert LeBlanc <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Renaissoft, Inc.
Maia Mailguard <http://www.renaissoft.com/maia/>
