Like every year since I’ve lived in Brussels, I went back to Italy for the Christmas holidays to spend some time with my parents. When I’m at home, but also the rest of the year to be honest, my mother takes the opportunity to solve some outstanding challenges between her and the computer. The truth is that my digital skills are pretty average for my generation but for her I am Steve Jobs.
My mother is a teacher and, despite a certain aversion to technology, she has had to learn to come to terms with it since she worked at the school. And this is how for years, as I think many of my peers, I have become the operator to call when you need to convert a .doc to .pdf. and other amenities. To do these small operations, it usually takes me ten minutes thanks to the help of a software that allows you to operate remotely on your computer and solve any task.
Not just a question of digital skills
All easily manageable, therefore, until in November, following a business trip to Italy, I take the opportunity to stretch out at home. My mother’s surprise at seeing me ring the doorbell was twofold because for days she hadn’t been able to figure out yet another digital puzzle: signing up for a Ministry platform to take an online training course. And this is where the ordeal begins. I discover that teachers do not have a single official e-mail with which to communicate with the services that concern them but at least four. One personal, one of the school, one of the old Miur and one of the new Miur. Trying to enter the e-mail box useful for registration, I discover that if something goes wrong, such as simply entering the wrong password, no message appears explaining why the login was not possible as there is no button to ask for the password reset. A deafening silence.
After an hour of useless attempts to solve it, we call a colleague of hers who had already signed up, after as many unsuccessful attempts, and who reveals to us one of the first arcana that allows us to continue in what has turned from nonsense into a film horror. We are able to access the e-mail required for subscription to the platform to discover that it has an interface from the early 2000s. The interface of the platform in question is not very clear either and its usability leaves much to be desired. In the meantime, three hours have passed in which frustration, hope, consolation, unstoppable desire to throw the personal computer out of the window and resignation have alternated.
Yesterday, while following one of these trainings, the system did not allow her to access the next module. New call to the “smart” colleague who “reassured us” saying that it had happened to him too and that he had already sent an e-mail to the assistance service. So more calls, e-mails, wasted time.
At this point I thought about the hours my mother and her colleagues (as well as their smart children / grandchildren) lose each month trying to figure out how to fulfill their sacred duty as teachers. From this episode my mom earned “one hundred sanctity points” which added to the many earned over time in the field, at home and at school.
A non-functional site is better than nothing
Hence a dutiful appeal to the Government and in particular to the Ministries of Education, Innovation and Public Administration. At stake is not “only” the wasted time of millions of people who already have insufficiently recognized and paid work, but the frustration combined with a growing feeling of hostility towards technology, when it complicates processes instead of simplifying them . Now that there are European funds for digitization, think not only of digitizing the PA but of doing it with the aim that it is a pleasure to navigate within it. That tests are done with users to try different solutions, that UI and UX designers are included in the design for the good of all citizens and, which is good for my future sanity.
And if everything goes wrong, please, at least invite Salvatore Aranzulla to open a specific section “How to do for … if not even your colleague knows what to do for”.
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