May 19, 2010
Dear Everyone:
A couple of weeks ago, I sent out a link to a web
server where I had posted the eight Modules of
Computer Based Training
(CBT) for the
document management system that I’m working on.
This was partly to assure certain people that I was actually
accomplishing something. It
was also to have the people who support the system review the CBT for
accuracy and clarity.
One of the support people sent me a 10-page list of
“mistakes” that he had noticed.
Apparently, when I said “review for accuracy and clarity” he
heard “find what’s wrong with this picture”.
Certain multiple-choice answers on a “self-check quiz” were not
aligned to his satisfaction.
In some places, he spotted where the word “question” was bleeding
through a button. Tiny,
miniscule, little details that had nothing to do with learning how to
use the system.
Nevertheless, I found in the book that I had bought
to help me with the CBT software mention of an “alignment” tool.
Sure enough, when I selected all the multiple-choice answers and
clicked the tool, they all lined up like good, little solders.
And as for the “question” that showed through the button, it
turns out that the software automatically marks “question 1 of 3” (or
something like that) whenever it detects a quiz.
I have not found a way to turn that off.
But I was able to move it to the lower left corner, and “align”
the buttons so they don’t land on top of this annoying “question”
business.
The other support person had asked if I could
“highlight” a function that many people seem to have missed.
It’s something he goes over with people on the phone all the
time: “I can’t find my
document.” When you create,
or import, or copy, or drag-and-drop a document into the system, it’s
automatically displayed in alphabetical order.
People evidently do that a lot, then forget what they named the
document and they can’t find it.
The (very) simple answer is to sort the documents
by the date and time it was last modified.
I already had over 100 documents in one folder.
Think about how much time it would take you to create over 100
“dummy” documents; documents that have no useful information, but
contain something that won’t hurt the Company.
I started out copying Company Policies and pasting
them into documents. But
there aren’t even that many of them and they’re pretty boring.
Next I tried typing out poems that I had learned in high school.
You know:
“Listen, my
children, and you shall hear
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere.
‘Twas the eighteenth of April in ‘75
Hardly a man is now alive
Who remembers that famous day and year.”
(As a matter of fact, they’re all dead now.)
Then it hit me:
I went out to
Google and searched for “Shakespearean Sonnets”.
Shakespeare wrote over 150 sonnets, that we know of.
(No telling how many he wrote and sold to wealthy nobles wooing
wealthy gentlewomen.) Sure
enough, more than a few people had gone to the trouble of posting all
the sonnets to the World Wide Web.
And they’re all in the
Public Domain, so there are no
copyright
issues.
It took me a few hours to copy them all into
separate documents, but they’re all in the document management system
now, automatically listed in alphabetical order.
But now I needed to add a new document, with a name that would
automatically put it at the end of the list.
So I created “Whiskey.doc”.
If you open the document, it reads:
“This is the
International Radio Code Word for the letter ‘W’.”
Then I did a screen capture showing what happens
when you click the “Modified” header.
“Whiskey.doc”, which is years younger than any of the sonnet
documents, immediately jumps to the top of the list.
I had hoped to show it to him at our regular Wednesday afternoon
meeting, but he was out of the office today.
However, his co-worker (the one highlighting pesky little
details) said he would definitely like it.
And in the meantime, there’s always the hyperlink-that-works-in-“Preview”-but-not-in-“Published” knot to unravel. Fun for all.
Love, as always,
Pete
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