Labour day is upon us, so tales of labour shall follow.

Over the past couple of years, we’ve been working with Wormtongue and a real doctor/academic (let’s call her Gumdrop) to assemble a program that will teach students about various anatomical concepts. The program attempts to determine what issues are particularly difficult to deal with from a learning perspective. (It’s essentially a prototype that supports some educational research.)

We began the project, as always, with a conceptual meeting. A project concept was hashed out. We documented the concept and sent it to the client for review. They decided to change the project’s concept, and we had more meetings. We re-documented and re-submitted. They decided to change the proejct’s concept again.

We repeated this cycle twice more over approximately six months, and then the whole thing stalled out for a year. Why? Not really sure, but I suspect it had something to do with the fact that the concept they had reiterated over and over now bore no resemblance to the initial grant they submitted, and so they had to figure out a way to slime the two together when it came time for a presentation.

Of course, that was the least of their worries after we reminded them that they also had to consider something called a “budget”. They were wasting so much money in the conceptual phase that it was doubtful we would actually be able to produce anything at the end of the day. So they shat themselves and stewed in it for a year.

With this and that, the project restarted in the spring. All of a sudden, the entire thing (design document, production and completion) had to be finished in a month. We scrambled to pull together a design document. There are numerous tales of woe in here, mostly inflicted upon the HPDEB. I will confine this tale to my own experience, however, which concerns the reporting of results.

Essentially, Gumdrop needed to see how users were being routed through various help functions for her research paper. Unfortunately, when we asked her what she wanted to track and how it should be reported, she didn’t know.

Despite repeated questionings, we were unable to get a response so the HPDEB made up a bunch of tracking categories (which were submitted and approved) and we agreed that we’d deal with reports later, but that if they needed something in a hurry we could always provide a raw sql database of results for them to query.

Fast forward a month and a half.

Gumdrop has deputized an associate (let’s call her Allcaps) to run users through the program. Allcaps and Gumdrop ask me about how she can get reports on use - I tell them that we’ll have to meet to discuss the details of reporting so we know what information they need and how they want it documented. They go off and do their focus group.

Fast forward to this week.

I get an email from Allcaps, asking for a report on user activity. She’s putting on a presentation on use next week, so she needs data. I reiterate that we don’t have any reports set up, but that if they are really in a hurry I can supply the raw data files…and if that doesn’t work, we should set up a meeting to get reports in place. Allcaps requests the raw data. I send it over.

Gumdrop hits the roof.

Apparently our work is “pathetic”. They had always “talked about needing reports”. Apparently they need results NOW for Allcaps presentation, and that we’ve “been adequately credited as contributors” in the presentation. Not sure what to make of that last bit, I reiterate that we need to know what they want to have reported in order to generate reports.

Allcaps sends us a list of categories she’d like to report on. The vast majority of information she requests isn’t in the list of tracking categories that Gumdrop signed off on - so we don’t have any data, let alone reports.

I re-reiterate that we need to meet to discuss reports. Anger levels mount. I’m suddenly convinced I’ve accidentally slipped through a portal to Dimension X, where the rules of logic break down and fundamental principles reverse themselves. The result is at fault for the cause.

With this and that, we get Allcaps over and work out what we can provide. As an aside, we ask about how the focus groups went. Bearing in mind that the program was built for solo use, it is revealed that the focus groups were done in a group setting. So apparently users, afraid to look stupid and use the help functions, were exchanging answers verbally and working things out in groups while using the program. Which means that their use of the help functions (the whole point of the research being assembled around the program) is completely skewed.

When considered in light of the fact that about half of the data they wanted to report on was actually tracked, I’m very curious to see what their research paper could actually say.

She also shows us the content of her presentation. Which looks to primarily be about the process for putting together the program…illustrated through program screenshots and schematics from our design document.

Dimension X indeed.