A coworker recommended this video as a possibility for the “entertainment combined with a thought provoking sentiments” segment during an upcoming Staff Institute day. As soon as I saw it, I thought: "This shows better than any words I can write, how new technology users sometimes feel." While I laughed all the way through, another coworker thought it was mean-spirited as she perceived it as poking fun at technologically challenged individuals. I can see both sides of the argument however I still think it is priceless.
I especially like the part where the Help Desk person asks the user “Did you read the manual?” Well, it is definitely a Catch-22 situation as the manual is in the same format as the book, just smaller. If the user has difficulty in reading a book, then theoretically how did the creators of the manual think the user could read the manual? This lack of comprehension by designers of documentation and other help systems is the bane of new users worldwide.
The video is from a Norwegian television show called Øystein & Meg which translates to Øystein & I. Originally aired in 2001 by NRK, it was a big hit in literacy circles in February 2007 when it was posted on YouTube. There are other versions out on YouTube which differ in brightness. Also the English translation varies from different submitters and since I do not speak Norwegian, I choose this version as it is the one posted by the actual producers. It is written by Knut Nærum and performed by Øystein Bache and Rune Gokstad, according to the Norwegian Broadcasting Channel.
I had to break my blog posting into two parts as YouTube does allow you to post directly to Blogger however you can not enter any additional text as it then causes an error entitled "unknown error". So after a couple of tries, I figured out I could simply post the video with no accompanying text and have an entry with the descriptive content. Without doubt, this is a case of "live and learn" for me.
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2 comments:
I regularly show one of the versions of this video in my classes (did I forget with you?) because it is so true and so funny. We make so many assumptions about using technology and this points that out very cleverly.
This is a great video! Like you, I did not see it as mean-spirited -- how can you expect people to know how to use something totally new to them if you don't explain it well!
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