It's a running joke: ninety percent of the task of training nonprofit professionals to use computers consists of stress management. Incredibly smart and sensible people can freeze up when confronted with a new technology, and when that happens, the only instruction that seems to make sense is "to continue, smash forehead on keyboard."
And now Kathy Sierra, a blogger from the wonderful web site titled "Creating Passionate Users," has articulated the underlying principle perfectly:
Now that we know this, it's up to those of us who are nonprofit technology assistance providers to find practical ways to apply this wisdom. It's up to us to think about the comfort of the end-user. It's no small thing to have this wonderful insight handed to us, but I'm not at all convinced that there's a formula for fear-reduction that works for every situation. After all, I'm not techno-phobic, but that doesn't stop me from suffering from every other fear in the book. If only it did!
Still, Kathy Sierra's on the right track, when she says:
It's a not fast and easy solution that she's offering us, since it take a lot of effort to think about how technophobes use technology, and not just about how we assume any reasonable person should use it. But it's an effort that we, as nonprofit technology assistance providers, have to make. And the nervous novices in the realm of technology - who are virtually always masters in their own fields - have a right to demand that we make this effort.
