Archive for July 2007
How to bias your online poll results
I’ve just stumbled across an old screenshot from the website of Channel 4’s shockingly bad Great Global Warming Swindle, which claimed that there was no link between greenhouse gases and global warming (and they have the audacity to put it in the science section of their site too!).

I think this is what psychologists call priming. And I seem to recall that – somewhat unsurprisingly – the majority of people voted “No”.
NHS IT systems fail due to lack of User-Centred Design?
Very interesting report at Contractor UK about Richard Granger, the former Director of IT at the NHS. He is, apparently, “ashamed” of some of the NHS IT systems and quite damning of some their contractors. Of particular note is the comment that one system:
isn’t useable (sic) because they have been building a system with Fujitsu without listening to what the end users want.
I kind of assumed that User-Centred Design would be at the forefront of NHS IT directives (I can’t imagine a situation where understanding the context of use is more important than in the high-pressure, on-the-go, constantly-interrupted environment of the NHS). However, this seems to be far from the truth.
Read the whole report: Granger ‘ashamed’ of NHS IT systems




