People who make and design technology often say things like “It’s so easy to use that a 10 year old kid could use it”. The trouble is that they don’t supply you with a 10 year old kid and you’re left with a shite manual and no clue about how to use 70% of your new purchase’s features.
Some smart Netherlands folks have launched a service with this in mind called Bellendoejezo (“this is how you make a call”, if my Dutch serves me right). The service uses young people to teach older ones how to use their mobiles in a series of workshops, primarily aimed at the corporate market and charging about Euro 50 ($78) per person, per session.
I suggested much the same thing a couple of years back, but more as a way for operators to get people to use the full feature set of their products and thus drive revenues from the take up of these services. How many more people would browse the mobile web or use MMS if they know how?
As anyone who has had to deal with “ordinary” people in a technology context knows, you should never overestimate their ability to use technology. The classic British Sitcom, The IT Crowd (about the PC support people in a mega-corporation) captured this concept perfectly, when every call to the department was always answered with “Have you tried turning it off and on again?” and “Are you sure it’s plugged in?”. Which obviously always cracks the problem.
I think as the rate of change increases, technology education is going to be an increasingly important and challenging area for society to tackle. Otherwise it’ll no longer be a case of rich and poor, but a division between people who can use technology and who can’t. You may very well have $1 million dollars in your bank, but if you can’t use the banking system, you may starve anyway.
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