mdlake.net

Ah, the internet. The information superhighway. Pretty much every organization more sophisticated than “Me and my drinking buddy Drake” has a web site, allowing you to learn any and all information they could provide you in person, more conveniently (no business hours), more quickly (one click away !) and more consistently (everyone gets the same web page, after all). The web is so undeniably useful that even the government, which created the thing in the first place, is imitating the people who figured out how to use it, posting whatever you need to know about your government agencies.

So goes the theory. In practice, it doesn’t always work that well. Even limiting ourselves to those government documents Cheney hasn’t yet classified, the information supplied in official government websites can leave a lot to be desired. I learned this by pursuing a license to teach in New Jersey. A short search turned up their official, three-step program to licensing, marked out with bullet points and everything. Great; looks handy—until you read it in detail.

Step one is “Certificate of Eligibility.” The paragraphs that follow this header consist of expansions on the theme “certificate of eligibility” with expansive definitions, like “The CE permits the applicant to seek and accept employment in positions requiring certification.” Note that this step does not contain any imperative verbs; it’s unclear whether they mean “get a certificate of eligibility from the state,” or “get a certificate of eligibility from somewhere else to present to the state,” or “fill out your own certificate of eligibility, which you can download here, or what. Nor does it tell you which jobs require certification, or what is required to satisfy certification. Just know that a certificate of eligibility certifies your eligibility for jobs requiring a certificate of eligibility. Step two is “Legalizing Employment and Induction – Provisional Certificate.” Step three is “Becoming Permanently Certified – Standard Certification.” I won’t quote the paragraphs following these headings, but suffice to say they have no imperative verbs, either.

Increasingly, organizations are turning to the internet not only to disseminate information, but to handle direct interaction, as well. MSU, just down the road, can provide the education courses necessary for certification, so I turned to them, not only to pursue the courses but as an external source of information on certification, since they handle a lot of education majors. MSU has staff willing to answer questions, if you simply must show up in person to pester them, but they really prefer you to apply entirely online. Their web site tells you so. That way, you can start paying tuition without the hassle of learning about fees, tuition, student support, and similar important questions. In exchange for avoiding human contact, you get five benefits: It’s easier. And faster. And there’s no delay in the mail, so it’s faster. And it’s faster. And you can track how soon they’ll be done. Yeah, I’ll bet. Bureaucracies do find things go a lot more smoothly when those pesky patrons are dropped into an automated limbo instead of hanging around trying to find out the answers they actually need, instead of whatever answers the bureaucrats guess patrons are probably looking for. Managers like the system too; it’s a lot cheaper to employ an automated phone tree than actual people with actual training. And it’s faster.

That’d be fine…if automated services were more comprehensive, and more comprehensible. Technical writers are not merely a corporate status symbol; they are essential to any instructions you want people to follow without direct human guidance. If a government web page chintzes on its technical writing budget, then people end up calling the department anyway, negating the whole point of making all that information readily available on the web in the first place. Worse, they call when they’re cranky, having endured half an hour’s frustration of digging through instructions that don’t make any sense. Bet that makes everyone’s day.