Consequences of designing software

Last Update: 28.11.2018. By Jens in Newsletter

The next article is about a new software system for medical clinics and how it changed the work of different kind of users like doctors, assistants and biz administrators. It is a prime example of the unintentional consequences a new software has on people. It is a long read though.

It’s what I experienced a couple of times with systems made by and for the committee and not for the people actually using it. The committee is happy, the users are not. In the case of the article, it made the doctors do more admin work and “enjoy” the daily hassles of working with technology. Of course, time is limited, so we need to reduce other tasks like actually working with the patient. Which eventually leads to unhappy doctors and patients.

Their assistant can’t even help anymore because of the rights system. It is centralized and if you are an assistant, you are not allowed to use doctors screens and can’t enter data on their behave. Before, they could free up much more time so the doctors could spend it on non-admin tasks. Which they always do when I have to visit a doctor.

These are just two of the unintentional consequences caused by the software. And those happen all the time. Committees don’t care for the user, project managers don’t care for the user, nor do the software developers. I’ve been there in the not care but I’ve also done the opposite; suggesting to look at how the users actually work and we can assist them. Sometimes they need to adjust their process because it is crap, but sometimes it is not. However, if nobody actually looks at those processes and the people involved and actually care of making the whole thing better, it will turn into crap-ware.

Think about it.

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