[Sigia-l] Re: Help! New job ... terrible knowledge management

[Andrew Otwell]

Lucie wrote, of her new government job:

> Well, not surprisingly, the system of sharing research & organizing the
> database here is absolutely appalling.
> 
> Everyone here thinks it is just fine, and so far no one wants to listen
> to me when I say there are serious problems. They are just plowing ahead
> creating this massive Access database with totally messed up categories,
> all of which were chosen by the programmer. I have no idea why Access was
> chosen, since I'm new, but it's already causing confusion. I've never
> used it before now, but am horrified at the interface.

As a taxpayer, I _demand_ that my tax dollars go only towards usable IT
systems! My congressperson will be hearing about slow task-completion times
and high error-rates!

That probably wouldn't really help, just like all those other crank letters
I write.

You might want to point out http://www.usability.gov/ which is a
government-funded usability effort by the Nat'l Cancer Society. It's
terriffic.  

Does Section 508 give you any leverage here? Does it apply to government
employees, or at all in your case? It mandates certain levels of
accessibility, which you might be able to spin into usability improvements.