Web 2.0: difficult to use
02:42, 3 October 2007
.. Posted in techculture and tech to help.. Link
A researcher studying the use of Web 2.0 technologies said in her report that most nonprofits that she reviewed, "are not taking advantage of easy-to-use social media tools effectively. For instance, only half of them have blogs, and only half of these groups allow comments on their blogs."
I've worked to promote nonprofit use of computer and networking technology since the early 1990s. I read this statement and just shook my head -- it is, in a word, insulting.
The author may see Web 2.0 tools as easy-to-use, but many, many people -- in fact, *most* people -- don't. I work in both the tech-savvy world -- which is, like it or not, relatively tiny -- and the not-so-tech-savvy world, which is very, very large. Many of the nonprofits I work with are ever-frustrated at the attitude and approach of those promoting Web 2.0. This statement is a perfect illustration as to why.
The author dismissed my comments. She asked on her own blog: "Does Jayne think that using a cell phone is difficult?" I responded: "Indeed, I do! For myself and many other people, a cell phone is not intuitive and we struggle with all the features. And it *regularly* happens that someone I know sells their most recent cell phone in order to downgrade to something more understandable (surely you have read the media articles on this phenom?)." Yes, others might find the cell phone easy to use, but I don't, and I'm not alone.
She further asked, "How about blogs?" I answered: "I have struggled *many* times to figure out how to comment on a blog -- it is not always obvious. And for users who aren't using the very latest operating systems and browsers, blogs can be completely inaccessible. Your own blog isn't accessible for the browser I use to search the web, so I had to try to use another browser; then the blog login page wouldn't recognize this browser, so I had to try a third -- all in all, it made your own blog *very* difficult to use, and took more than five minutes for me to finally be able to post this comment. In addition to my own experience, I've helped many nonprofit staff members and volunteers set up or comment on blogs -- they could not figure it out on their own. So, to myself and those people, what do you say? Rather than smirk that 'it's easy!', why not acknowledge the difficulties others may have that you don't? Why not acknowledge that, indeed, what's easy for you and other very tech savvy folks might not be for others?"
I stand by my original opinion: all Web 2.0 tools are NOT very easy to use, for many, many people. And nonprofits are at a particular disadvantage because unlike large corporations, they don't have the budget to upgrade their computers regularly to the latest and greatest computers and software, nor to hire staff who are dedicated to training other staff members on the latest technology or to publishing a blog and responding to comments. If tech advocates such as the author of this report can't acknowledge that Web 2.0 technology is, indeed, difficult for many, many people to use, and that nonprofits have a number of budgetary constraints that keep such tools out of their reach, then the digital divide will just keep widening.
