I take it the users were quite cutting about the adoption of new tech?

/coat

Cutting edge technology.

A sharp comment

This is why you don't give end users something to test to just 'see how it works' and then roll it out. You need to work with them and see how many different ways they will attempt to use that item then use that feedback to get to a working solution.

At a previous employer, I was asked to be part of the user acceptance testing of the new incident ticketing system which had been under development for about five years. Half of the team doing the testing immediately rejected the application because the part they used had gone from a two step process to something like six steps and having to flip back and forth between two screens as well as duplicating data entry. The part I was testing worked but again required the re-entry of data on two different screens,. However, due to 'security concerns', the new application had to be accessed over a secure connection using an RSA token and a VPN which made login take almost three minutes, and the latency when using the new application was about eight seconds per screen which made it completely unusable, so it was roundly lambasted as being unfit for purpose.

It was eventually fixed and rolled out, but that took nearly another two years and involved the complete removal of the requirement for using an RSA token and the VPN as well as other things to remove the latency and give it adequate performance.

"You need to work with them and see how many different ways they will attempt to use that item then use that feedback to get to a working solution."

That sounds like the agile methodology. Build the basic thing and put it in front of users to see how it goes, then itterate on that each sprint adding in new features based on the user feedback.

You like Agile you do.

It's not agile. It's basic common sense.

Back in the Days Before Agile we had users involved in all parts of a system build. I was quite annoyed when it stopped happening, because end user input was so useful.

Most of the time it worked quite well - the the users spotted things that would be a problem, we had advice from people who knew what the system was supposed to do, and we had engagement from the target audience from the very start. On the user's side this whole computing thing became less scary as they saw how it worked and could actually get changes made when things weren't quite right.

better to design your product fool-proof, than to try to educate legions of fools.

No matter how foll-proof you make your design, you will find there are always better fools who will break it.

Nothing is foolproof because fools are so clever.

Ahh! So, is that why so many of them end up in C-Suite?

"A common mistake that people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools." ― Douglas Adams

Making things "fool proof" is one thing.

Making them "people proof" is entirely different matter.

Cutting corners? Never a good idea

Oh dear, I'd better be going

You mean they didn't soup up the lasers to open the box? I am disappointed. Surely that would have been a true tech solution?

Yeah, they did but the storage rooms kept burning down.

during my Computer Science degree one of the things was SSADM (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Structured_systems_analysis_and_design_method)

one of the components is speaking to the people who will use the thing and ensure the system is compatible with the use case etc.

"I'd like to say we just told everyone to stop taping knives to laser terminals and the problem went away, but that didn't work," he told On Call. "We ended up actually redesigning the LRTs to handle this type of use."

my first thought was that the scanner should be redesigned to be more rugged and incorporate a cutter.

its far better to go with & enhance the flow than against the grain.

It might be a case of the users not actually grasping how they'd use it if you just told them about it - and even if the customers had been consulted it would probably have been the management who answered. With hindsight they should have made up a few prototypes and let the end users loose with them. Even then it might not have worked as from TFA only some branches came up with taping the knife to the reader so they might not have learned from that.

People naturally use a box knife using one hand to hold the box steady (particularly when the box is small or not extremely-heavy), and the other to wield the knife. Giving them a LRT means that without the LRT/box knife/duct tape modification, users have to put down the LRT, pick up the knife, cut the box, put down the knife, pick up the LRT, scan the box contents, put down the LRT ... because it is awkward to try to hold the LRT and steady the box with the LRT-holding hand whilst wielding the box knife with the other hand. It also is awkward to hold both the LRT and the box knife in the same hand while steadying the box with the other hand.

You can bet your booties that if the LRT/box knife/duct tape mod had been prohibited, and the LRT had not been re-designed, users would be dropping their LRTs -- with the LRTs taking damage -- because dropping the LRTs is much-faster.

Obvious solution!

You don't modify the LRT to have a box cutter knife taped to it.

You BUILD your LRT into a box cutter knife!

If they'd watched the actual users of the system, then they'd have seen this coming.

The task is not "scan the barcodes". The task is "stock take". Scanning barcodes is merely one part of trying to open every box and count the contents.

Where else can they safely put the blade needed to open the box?

300 locations all coming up with the same solution should have been embarrassing for the project. There's an obvious requirements gap that you don't need to be a pro to solve

"Where else can they safely put the blade needed to open the box?"

Wherever they put it when they were writing down the numbers using the paper system. Or did they tape a pen to the blade?

"Or did they tape a pen to the blade?"

Have you never wondered where the expression "The Pen is mightier than the Sword" came from?

1. Of course they did! That's why it's called a pen-knife!

2. Under the paper-based system, they didn't have to open the boxes to stock-take! The boxes are labelled on the outside: "Softie Brand Paper Towels, 12-Count", or whatever.

So put a barcode on the outside of the box.

This whole process sounds badly thought out. Every box that goes into the warehouse has to be opened and each item scanned when previously they just read the outside of the box? How could that ever improve efficiency?

I think that if you attach a knife to a laser gun, it's technically a bayonet?

Weren't the Users told never to bring a Knife to a (Laser) Gun fight?

Clearly there were still a few dying embers of common sense in Lionel's day.

Today the manglement would install video cameras, hire a casual, or more likely, compel a salaried line manager to review the footage and sack any storeman that affixed his box opening bayonet to the LRT gun.

Your typical grizzled cantankerous storeman usual sports something a bit more robust than your $2 Daiso plastic handled box cutter (~Stanley knife [AU]) which is also insanely sharp so I imagine quite lethal.

If you were spending 40 hours a week opening cartons and for forty years you would have long ago stopped ffaffing around with blunt or fragile cutting tools both of which are like to cause injury. (I have only ever cut myself with, usually other people's, blunt knives.)

A common form was a piece of broken (hand) saw blade, roughly like a massively oversized #11 scalpel blade, mounted a wooden handle which In turn was wrapped in layers of gaffer tape (for grip.)

Saw blade steel takes and retains a decent edge, I am told.