BFTP: Limits on lists and change

For a list of all the ways technology has failed to improve the quality of life, please press 3. 
Alice Kahn

I've been reading the instruction sheets for our new VOIP telephone system. I am a little worried. Some of the tasks require up to ten steps. Setting a speed dial number, for example.

My unscientifically-proven observation is that you lose between 5% and 10% of people for every step in required to complete a task. One step - 90+% will complete it. Two steps - 80% - 90% will complete it. Which means that for jobs requiring 10 steps or more, very few people will have the tenacity to accomplish them successfully.

My own internal dialog in working on lists of instructions goes something like...

1. OK, step one. Where are my reading glasses?
2. Step two. Going good! Get a beer.
4. On to step four. Wait, did I skip step three?
5. Up to step five. Damn, this isn't working. Oh, I did step two wrong. I have to go back.
6. Step six already. This is completely unintelligible. English is obviously not this writer's first - or second language!
7. Step seven. To hell with it.
8. And step eight - give it to a kid who can do the task without looking at instructions at all.
9. Optional step nine - complain about technology in general.
10. Step ten - have another beer.

The same 5% - 10% theory seems to work with surveys as well. 90+% of people will complete a 1 question survey. More than 10 questions, well, who has that kind of time and patience?

There is a very interesting article in Fast Company about the relationship between the ability to change and exhaustion. Dan Heath (one of the Stickiness Brothers) writes:

You hear something a lot about change: People won’t change because they’re too lazy. Well, I’m here to stick up for the lazy people. In fact, I want to argue that what looks like laziness is actually exhaustion.

How complex can the technology tasks we ask our staff and students to master be? Are we finding the least complex tools available that will still let them do the job? What is the balance between power and complexity? (If GoogleDocs has even 80% of the functionality of Office, is that good enough for most students and staff?)

Or has the deluge of the new and work in keeping up simply exhausted all tenacity and perseverance from the modern learner?

Original post June 4, 2010