Nothing works without help
For reasons that are unclear to me, my father (early 70s) has been invited to a project that is trying to record the number of unreported cases of corona infections. He gets a stack of corona self-tests sent, is supposed to test himself twice a week and document the result in an app (fill out a questionnaire and take a photo of the test).
That’s where it starts: He didn’t manage to install the app. I don’t know if he even tried it seriously. I don’t know if there were instructions. Due to a lack of time, I don’t bother with the diagnosis, but install the app that can be found in the app store with the name of the project.
Then it goes on: He has received a QR code with his personal activation key by email, which he has to scan in the app. He shows me the email on his cell phone. It quickly becomes clear to me that a second device is needed, because I also don’t know how to capture a QR code displayed on one device with the same device. I take a screenshot of the QR code in the email on his phone. (Screenshots are a technique he doesn’t master. I don’t think he even really understands the concept that you can create such a shot without the help of a second device to capture the screen.) I’ll send the screenshot to myself via WhatsApp and open the app on his phone to scan the QR code on my phone’s display.
This process doesn’t take a minute and doesn’t even feel complicated to me, but it’s actually a completely dysfunctional process. If the project that had the app developed had any thought behind it, it might have been: people can scan the QR code from their laptops (since laptops are known to be the natural habitat of email). And the young people without a laptop will manage somehow.
Then the first corona test must be recorded. We do it together – or actually I do it for him. It is again due to the lack of time and a turbulent environment that I do not, as one should do, just sit next to him and let him do his thing while I give assistance when needed. The next regular test, which he has to record himself, shows that that would have been better. That goes wrong. (Since I’ve since left, I don’t know the details, but he seems to have selected the menu item to enter an additional test outside of the prescribed rhythm instead of the menu item for entering a regular test.) At least he realizes his mistake himself and calls the project’s contact point, where he reaches a person who appears to be able to correct his erroneous data.
I don’t want to be so negative, but I can’t come to any other conclusion than that he couldn’t have done any of the necessary steps on his own. His participation in the project would not have been possible without the support of a third party (that is, me and the project person on the phone). And I’m pretty sure that the people in the project – and in many other projects – are not aware of that so clearly.
(Alina Smithee)