There was a new notice in my office about a briefing of a new information system.
I heard sighs every now and then, which were quiet though obviously in a rather desperate tone.
Even if we understand we must do that, we don’t want to do it. We often come across such a situation.
An expert of Instructional Design, Julie Dirksen highlighted this kind of psychological barrier in her book “Design For How People Learn”. What makes us feel like that is an anxiety to challenge, insufficient understanding to a change, or desire to maintain habit.
For the organizer of the briefing, who are administrators of the system, introduction to the new information system is very important occasion. Whilst the audience of the briefing, who are users, well understand the importance. However for those users who struggled to learn the current system when it was introduced, experiencing a similar process would be painful: they would not very confident whether they can learn the new system smoothly, or they may be complained by customers if they took long time to operate the new system, and so on… various obstacles will be foreseen.
In her book, Julie Dirksen explains about the strategies to reduce the psychological barrier. Among others, what I got interested in was a power of peer. Some people are adept at learning new things; but some are not. If there are users who learned first, administrators let those early learners spread the effectiveness of the new system and help other users get used to it.
That reminds me of a scene when I introduced a new template document in a meeting with a few members of a partner company. In the meeting, one of them seemed reluctant to use the template. Then one of her colleagues sitting next to her told. “I used this. This file is easy to figure out the total amount when you input this and that…” Then it seemed she was convinced. She finally said she would try using the new template.
It is important to design a user-friendly system and easy-to-understand manuals though, users are human: psychological factor can also be considered so that we can guide learners towards more acceptable direction. Creating a favorable learning experiences would be key. ■