[OT] Ultimate Interface.

[Andoni]

Hello,

I have been asked by a charity in my home town to consult on getting a
computer system in to manage their rota of slightly over 300 volunteers
filling about 180 different duties (time slots) in a week.

The biggest problem they have without a doubt is getting the 60-80 year old
volunteers who form about 40% of the total number, to use any form of
computer interface to book duties where now a days the fill their names out
on a sheet of paper in the box representing the duty they want to do.

Can you please give me suggestions for hardware mostly as to the VERY
simplest possible way to get somebody to enter data into a computer system.

In case you were wondering I am not being paid for this enterprise, so any
help you give is directly beneficial to the charity only.

Ideas I have come up with include having a big (say 19") touch screen with
no windowing so that they would have to press only twice, once on their name
and once on the duty they want to fill. Another is a scanner for reading the
hand written notes, but these are all expensive and can probably be
bettered.

Any thoughts?

Thanks in advance,
Andoni.

 

[Michael Borgwardt]

Ideas I have come up with include having a big (say 19") touch screen with
no windowing so that they would have to press only twice, once on their name
and once on the duty they want to fill. Another is a scanner for reading the
hand written notes, but these are all expensive and can probably be
bettered.

Any thoughts?

Go with the first, I'd say. The problem with the second is not so much the
vulnerability of the hardware - handwriting recognition is something
software cannot do reliably (Hell, *people* can't do it reliably!).

Make sure the writing is big and easy to read. Find a simple to understand
way to partition the names an duty slots. Probably a scrolling alphabetical
list for the names, then the days of the next week or month and finally
the open duties of that day, perhaps also the filled ones to allow
people to cancel an appointment they have made.

The biggest complication (if you want to introduce it) is going to be
recurring duties and people doing them regularly.

 

[Apollo]

Go with the first, I'd say. The problem with the second is not so much
the
vulnerability of the hardware - handwriting recognition is something
software cannot do reliably (Hell, *people* can't do it reliably!).

Make sure the writing is big and easy to read. Find a simple to
understand
way to partition the names an duty slots. Probably a scrolling
alphabetical
list for the names, then the days of the next week or month and
finally
the open duties of that day, perhaps also the filled ones to allow
people to cancel an appointment they have made.

The biggest complication (if you want to introduce it) is going to be
recurring duties and people doing them regularly.

Completely agree with the touch screen idea. Software ideas that spring
to mind are a 'simple' visual basic app for the front-end linked to an
Access database for the recording, reporting and traceability.

 

[CBFalconer]

I have been asked by a charity in my home town to consult on
getting a computer system in to manage their rota of slightly over
300 volunteers filling about 180 different duties (time slots) in
a week.

The biggest problem they have without a doubt is getting the 60-80
year old volunteers who form about 40% of the total number, to use
any form of computer interface to book duties where now a days the
fill their names out on a sheet of paper in the box representing
the duty they want to do.

Can you please give me suggestions for hardware mostly as to the
VERY simplest possible way to get somebody to enter data into a
computer system.

In case you were wondering I am not being paid for this enterprise,
so any help you give is directly beneficial to the charity only.

Ideas I have come up with include having a big (say 19") touch
screen with no windowing so that they would have to press only
twice, once on their name and once on the duty they want to fill.
Another is a scanner for reading the hand written notes, but
these are all expensive and can probably be bettered.

KISS, i.e. keep it simple. This means no mice. They probably are
all familiar with at least typewriters, so a keyboard should not
be scary. Any menus should be clear, and easily selected,
possibly by cursor control keys or by entering single digits
and/or characters.

You don't specify the system, so I will assume MsDos/Windoze.
Install 4dos, which is free these days <http://jpsoft.com>. This
allows some very nice menuing and selection operations, and is
upward compatible with the brain damaged Microsoft shells. You
might well be able to do everything in batch files. You can
configure the console for large print and 40 char. lines, thus
allowing for poor eyesight.

At the same time, don't assume any idiocy. I can confidently
assert that people in their 70s can be very knowledgeable and
capable.

You neglected to set follow-ups, which you should do whenever
crossposting to multiple newsgroups. I am answering in a.c.h.

 

[~misfit~]

Hello,

I have been asked by a charity in my home town to consult on getting a
computer system in to manage their rota of slightly over 300
volunteers filling about 180 different duties (time slots) in a week.

The biggest problem they have without a doubt is getting the 60-80
year old volunteers who form about 40% of the total number, to use
any form of computer interface to book duties where now a days the
fill their names out on a sheet of paper in the box representing the
duty they want to do.

Can you please give me suggestions for hardware mostly as to the VERY
simplest possible way to get somebody to enter data into a computer
system.

In case you were wondering I am not being paid for this enterprise,
so any help you give is directly beneficial to the charity only.

Ideas I have come up with include having a big (say 19") touch screen
with no windowing so that they would have to press only twice, once
on their name and once on the duty they want to fill. Another is a
scanner for reading the hand written notes, but these are all
expensive and can probably be bettered.

Any thoughts?

Yep. If you've got that many volunteers doing that much stuff it shouldn't
be too hard to train a couple up for the 'plumb job' of data entry. Maybe
you have a couple who's time isn't being utilised due to lack of mobility?