IT Systems and there use in your job

RoTelly

I've largely an IT background in companies I have worked for. I have always noticed the stress of IT support and IT developers go through to get things working. So nothing new to me.

I think this stress is massively spilling over to other areas in my place of work. I think this is largely down to the systems that are use.

5 years ago people were doing the same task as today in 20mins, it is now an hours work. This I think is due largely to frustration, we get constant requests and questions from users about many of the new systems put in place, and its pure frustration for them.

I find that HR are really not aware because they are not using the same systems, or are avoiding the use of some systems.

Is it just me? I am seeing people burned out, not from the job but from the systems put in place to supposedly make things easier for them.

We have a new IT system coming in and one team have already refused to use it because they know it will ad 10 mins on to our work.

These are people with +5 years IT experience what do they think normal non-IT staff will feel?

How do you feel about technology now in the work place today is it getting better or worse?

Flinty997

This is my experience...

As systems become more complex and also move to the cloud the skillset to use computer system goes up, often out of the reach of users with basic or dated tech skills. Normal people.

At the same the developers developing the systems become more high end, they rule the roost and dictate how systems work. They are further and further removed from the users. Look at the new Dublin Bus TFI app, or RTE player. Usability is horrific. Even worse in enterprise and internal systems.

It's like the joke about asking a engineer to give you a car that never has engine problems. They give you a car without an engine.

Most people have absolutely awful IT skills. There is no dedicated training anywhere which shows you how to use a computer efficiently. How to use shortcuts, how to copy from clipboard history, basic Excel and automation skills. Nothing frustrates me more than someone using a mouse to drag a scroll bar to the top rather than use cntl+home. So much so, I deliver my own training to new people. They scoff when they are going to be told they are going to learn how to use a computer. But end up learning far more than they expected.

It's getting worse with newer generations who now spend their time on phones rather than tinkering with PCs.

Akrasia

My pc doesn't have a cntl button

Most PCs have a control key on their keyboard, I haven't seen one without. Probably marked as 'ctrl'. When pressed in conjunction with another key, it expands keyboard operations.

Akrasia

I work for a software company who provide a business application that is intended to be used by Employees of all technical abilities, as well as professionals who would be expected to have at least basic IT skills. Warning, unhinged ranting ahead.

We've just hired an outsourced 'designer' to consult with us on a new module we're developing and it's a joke. Basically, he's gone in and searched for what all of the competition are doing and tried to copy and paste their designs into our product. Modern UI design seems to me, to be doing it's absolute best to hide all the buttons behind icons and ambiguous buttons, where before there were proper buttons with labels that said exactly what they did, arranged in a logical way.

The designer also wants us to change all the colours to white, and various shades of blue because it gives the 'illusion of space' even if this means the actual usable space of the screen is lower than it coild be, and the 'call to action' buttons all look the same at a glance (you have to squint really hard to make out what the icons are sometimes and then guess what they're actually supposed to do). I seriously doubt that people with visual impairments would be able to use the new system as he designed it (he wants to address this with the meta-data tags but this is a cop out in my opinion, as it forgets the millions of people who aren't officially visually impaired, but still struggle to read low contrast text or small images on a small screen and wouldn't be using screen readers or other accessibility aids)

Too many designers and marketing folks all want things to look modern and flashy, but at the end of the day, users want simple, functional and easy to understand software. They like buttons being where they are used to seeing buttons, and menus to be organised rationally and where you expect them to be, not having to guess "Where's the setting for that hidden on this page?, 'I'll click on the company logo', 'nope, that's a dashboard, what about clicking my own name? Nope, that's logged me out....."

In the rush to not be seen as 'old fashioned' marketing have pushed software to the edge of usability because it looks good in a sales pitch before anyone actually starts using the system, and that's when the CEO/Board get the demo and decide to give it the go ahead or stick with the older system.

One of the other frustrating parts of modern software is integrations. Everyone wants everything to integrate with everything else. Ok, but this just means that software companies tell you that their product integrates with everything else. Most of the time they barely work, and when they do, they're significantly scaled down versions that don't do any of the things you actually want them to do, or require you to jump through so many hoops that it's just not worth it. The IT dept get plagued with requests to get the software to do what it was supposed to be able to do, but can't because the other software only integrates with version 2.5 of the API for X service and wasn't updated when Y service changed their API 2 minutes ago and X service doesn't have the resources to change their API to match the new format

And then you have the fact that everything now requires that you log in to multiple different platforms, and each one requires different licenses, and different levels of permissions, and different pricing structures, and then they all have MFA and different password requirements, and the links aren't persistent so you can't even bookmark your favourite pages half the time or share a link with a colleague.... you can't even copy images and send them to a colleague for sign-off because they don't have a license or haven't been invited to the system you're using....

The learning curve for many cloud systems is very steep and implementing a new business system probably fails at least 50% of the time because the users find that their old way of doing it was easier for them, so they'll record the minimum on the new system but actually work off an excel spreadsheet on their own laptop. One company I deal with tried 3 different project management systems in the past 18 months and ended up sacking the project manager, not because it was her fault, because nobody replied to any of her messages because nobody could remember how to log into the different systems or how to find the projects they were assigned to work on.

Flinty997

Oh I can 100% identify with all of that.

Nate--IRL--

Yep same for me. Especially the part about the "new improved UI" where functionality is flushed down the toilet, in a sacrifice to useless whitespace.

Nate

ELM327

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121048768#Comment_121048768

I think this is commonplace the last 5-10 years. Perfectly usable systems that were either java applets or unix/linux front ends being replaced by flashy nonsense that makes front end automation more difficult. White space and "one page" designs are awful. Give me 2012 tools and programs any day. Back when visual basic, Pega and a couple of other basic tools were sufficient!

circadian

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058310667/it-systems-and-there-use-in-your-job

What kind of services and systems are we talking here? The Decision makers should really be held to task by higher management because their decisions are costing the business time, money and staff.

nachouser

I'm still enraged on a daily basis that MS changed the colour of the Outlook task bar icon from yellow to blue.

Tow

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121746538#Comment_121746538

Have you tried the 'New' version of Outlook, which lack basic functionality such as the ability to save all attachments in one go.

I worked in the public libraries. All counties had different circulation systems, in Dublin we had Galaxy, a non-GUI Black & white screen one that was neat to use, running on Sun Systems/Unix. Had the option of booting into Windows too and launching from there, but some functionality was lost iirc.

Then came a GUI system ported from Berkeley, California to serve as an integrated system for the entire country. It was being piloted in Dublin, and was a complex package really intended for a university campus circulation system. New self service technology was being introduced too.

Every staff member got a two hour introductory session, that session being given by a team of three basic grade 3 staff who had volunteered to read the documentation of the basic package and see how they could adapt it to existing backend databases. We were all told we would be part of a gradual adaption process and it would be steep learning curve for everyone. There was no IT support available due to it being California based, nobody to phone up. Just non-IT people behind a regular counter to document every issue with it, and there were nonstop bugs to be overcome. In addition to all the other work we had to do, like HE records, Wages sheets, cash management, stuff people never think of when they think “librarian”.

Management happily remained clueless as to the operation of the new system and couldn’t care less when they pushed it live first day opening one new year after Christmas closure with absolute chaos ensuing. The system was being tested on customers there and then, crazy fines popping up, database records inside out, and the public accusing us of being typical public service idiots.

However that team of 3 on bottom wage were geniuses and got it all to work with input from the rest of us. Promotion for them? Overlooked of course, intelligence, dilligence, hard work and ingenuity didn’t always pay in the public service.