Censoring the census

It's a slow month in politics when the current burning issue for the Canadian government is a form document that no-one enjoys completing.

The government is in trouble because of their plans to scrap the mandatory 40-page long version of the census. It would be replaced by a shorter, voluntary version. Opposition parties, statisticians, researchers, and other groups say this will result in unreliable data being collected.

The government argues it's wrong to threaten fines and jail time for failing to fill out the census, and that the long form was too intrusive, with too many personal questions.

The government has a point. Look at some of the information required in the long form census:

• the languages you speak at home
• your race, nationality, and religion
• where you work and how get there
• the language you use on the job
• how much housework you do
• how much time you spend playing with your kids or talking to your parents
• whether you have trouble walking, climbing stairs, or bending
• who pays the rent or mortgage
• how many rooms and bathrooms in your home
• whether your home has any "missing or loose floor tiles," "defective steps" or more major deficiencies like "defective plumbing"

Does the government really need all this information? Although it's important for governments to plan for the future, I doubt all these excessive, personal details are really required. But that's not my main complaint.

The real problem is that I don't see why this document (either the long or short version) is even needed.

The entire system of mailing out a paper document to millions of people, having them mail it back, then having thousands of workers manually place the completed forms into a machine that can read them is nonsense.

I'm not suggesting that all this information should just be entered online. Aside from the fact that this assumes everyone has Internet access, this would still be a flawed process because:

• it requires people to complete a form, which introduces errors
• the data is only entered every few years, meaning it is never up-to-date

The real solution would be to glean the information on a continual basis in real-time from existing government databases. Everyone in Canada already has an ID number: a SIN, or Social Insurance Number. This number already contains much information about you. The government could use this information on a continual basis, in both short and long term planning.

Such a system would actively pull the required information, without forcing citizens to enter it, and would always be current. Yes, it would be an invasion of privacy, but so is the census itself. If you're going to invade everyone's privacy, you might as well do it cheaply and efficiently.

If the government ever created a system, they would simply be following the best practices of modern information management systems. In these systems, manuals are not just issued every few months when there is a release. They are continually updated, regenerated and then posted online. This allows the end user to always have access to the most current version.

It's time to move all paper-based forms to the ash heap of history where they belong.

Census designers - I hate those guys...

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Must you be so....human?

The winner of the technological quote of the year (so far) is:
Just don't hold it that way.

This was Steve Jobs' initial statement when confronted with reception problems of the iPhone 4. He was responding to the now infamous complaint that the signal strength dropped when the phone was held in a typical fashion.

For someone who has built an empire based on outstanding usability, it was an astonishingly stupid thing to say. Jobs was telling his users: we don't need to conform our products to you; instead, you need to confirm to our products. In other words: don't be human.

Jobs' arrogance is not surprising. His string of recent product successes went straight to his already super-sized head. The greatest danger of success is thinking you can do no wrong. After immense pressure, though, he finally relented, offering a free bumper case to fix the problem, and full refunds to users who wanted them.

The simple lesson is this: usability, that is, designing a product with the end user in mind, isn't just one thing - it's every thing. I continually see examples of poor documentation design where the user's needs were an afterthought, if they were a thought at all.

Here are some recent cases:

• An investment company sent me some forms to sign. I dutifully signed and returned them all. Later, I received one of the forms back. It turns out that even though it had areas highlighted in yellow for me to sign, date and initial, it was my copy. The only thing indicating this were the tiny words in the bottom right corner stating: Copy 1, Client. Typically, when I receive client copies, they are visibly marked with a stamp or a post-it note, stating: CLIENT COPY - PLEASE RETAIN.

• My credit card statement is a spectacular example of wasted space. Each 8 1/2 x 11 page lists only about 20 transactions, which take up about 20% of the page. The information on the remaining 80% (the payment portion, any special news or announcements, the total purchases and balance, and the interest) is unnecessarily duplicated on every page. And the legal information is duplicated on the back of each page! It's not uncommon for my statements to be five or more pages. This isn't just a waste of paper: it makes it harder for me to locate and review all the transactions, because I have so many pages to waft through. The information that only needs to appear once should only appear once. With the space gained, a five-page statement could be reduced to one or two pages. There should also be a line space separating each set of transactions by date, again to make it easier to read through them.

• Our garbage pick-up schedule indicated that July 1, the Canada Day holiday, was a pick-up day. Chaos and confusion ruled on our streets. Some people thought this must be a misprint, and did not leave their garbage out. Others took a chance and did take out their garbage. It turns out it was a pickup day, to allow the workmen to enjoy a long weekend. A simple asterisked note on the calender would have avoided all this confusion, for example: Note: This is a collection day despite the official holiday.

Usability must permeate every of your work. It means doing things like:

• creating TOCs that can quickly be glanced through to give an aerial view of the product
• writing conceptual overviews that leave no doubt about what the object or item in question is, and which include real-world examples and analogies where possible
• including overviews in tasks and then explaining the task in simple, easy-to-digest steps
• avoiding long sentences and paragraphs
• using fonts and page layouts that are clean, simple and readable
• breaking up large blocks of text with headings
• creating indices that anticipate all the different ways a user could look up a topic

Not doing these things results in unusable documentation. Our response cannot be:
Just don't read it that way.

Our response must be:
Just what is the way you read it?

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