The 5-minute Rule | Choosing Useful Technology and Services in School

After seeing what works and what doesn’t in school IT over the past 20 years, there’s a simple way to sum it up. If users can’t get started and use a service, piece of software, system or gadget intuitively within 5 minutes, just toss it and pick something else. It’s simply poorly built and doesn’t belong in schools.

If you defy my rule and choose systems with poor user experience and design, the result will be that these systems (and unfortunately the tasks that go with them) will be shunned like the plague by users. To add insult to injury, workload, stress, bad energy and tone will also increase.

The 80-20 rule as a consequence of the 5-minute rule

Another consequence of poorly designed IT is the amount of continuing training required just to be able to use the system, service, software or gadget in the first place. There are only a limited number of hours available (since IT is not a school’s core business) — and the more of those hours we spend on training in how a system works, the less time we have for the only thing that matters — how the system can be used pedagogically or otherwise help the organisation. A teacher today handles different IT in their work such as; various digital devices (for example PC/iPad), incident reporting, timetables, absence management, VAB/own sick leave/holiday, assessments, reporting of national tests, grades, office software, various communication tools, blog, user account management, different teaching materials and of course a lot more. Most of this is, of course, different systems. IT is not the core task for a teacher, so the better the IT, the more time can be spent on the core activity, education. So the 80-20 rule is the division of time for IT. If, for example, we plan joint time for a new tool, only 20% of the time should go to learning the tool and 80% of the time to how we can best use it to make the organisation better.

Meh! Is there really good IT then?

Absolutely. Look at your phone and think about how many of the apps you use daily required a course. How is it that 2-year-olds manage to handle an iPad? There is of course plenty of good IT. However we need to think more about buying with quality and usability in focus rather than checklists. A good rule is to let users try out the IT before you buy. Another tip is to google the company, service or product you’re considering buying and see how others experience it. Poor IT unfortunately costs too much on every level.