Novice vs Expert

On Monday, Feb 3rd we all witnessed a glitch associated with a very high profile app--the counting of votes in the Iowa Caucuses.

In reading various news sources about the glitch, we've noticed all too many people blaming themselves for not being tech-savy. In a recent #HITsm tweetchat, a similar discussion emerged.

People are all too quick to blame themselves for not being able to use a poorly designed (or tested) system. We call this the "Fallacy of User Error."

In a recent blog post by John Lynn, (of Healthcare Scene fame) , John discusses the irony of the following two statements:

• EHR Training Improves EHR Satisfaction and
• Physicians Don’t Want to Make Time for EHR Training

Many, many times in our usability evaluation and design career when a development team isn't really interested in making enhancements to fix specific issues that we've identified, we've heard something like the phrase, "There is nothing wrong with the user interface, it is a training issue."