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This is not a 'software engineering' thing. If you look at it from a software development POV, then the issue is more of not having 'product managers' whose job

by NearAP 6y ago

This is not a 'software engineering' thing. If you look at it from a software development POV, then the issue is more of not having 'product managers' whose job it is to - understand the requirements, write the specs, basically champion the POV of the end user (after actually identifying the correct end user). Examples a) The article talked about the software not working on Internet Explorer (IE). Older people still use IE. Software Engs with fewer years of experience tend to optimize for FF, Chrome and latest version of IE. b) The article talked about 'wrong' placement of buttons (probably the software is not responsive or not optimized for phones or older phones) c) Input fields seem to be rigid (older people will make mistakes) d) Once you're registered, you can't switch from patient to staff. This should have been designed like a 2-sided marketplace with the ability of one person to sometimes play the 2 roles If you don't have the right spec/requirements, the output of the engineers will still be bad

db48x 6y ago
Exactly. Civil Engineering does this better, I think. In a civil engineering project such as a bridge, the requirements may be written down by the customer, but the engineering design of the bridge is entirely the responsibility of a single architect. You can pretty much bet that the city council who bought the bridge doesn't know a thing about physics or engineering, so if the bridge falls down it has to be the architect's fault (assuming that it was built according to the plan). This gives the architect the power to say "no" to the customer.
bbeesley 6y ago
Internet Explorer has less than a 2% market share in the US, so under normal circumstances (given the sacrifices you’d have to make everywhere else) not bothering to support is is often a sensible decision. When it’s an access to healthcare issue though you can’t really exclude 2% of users. That said, building something that works well on mobile (re your point b) but also works on internet explorer is a pretty tough ask. No reason you couldn’t build a basic bitches version of the site that works on old devices, then route traffic these based on user agent. Idk, points a through c are basically already solved problems. I’d be disappointed to see problems like that if I was spending $20,000 let alone millions. Issue d though does feel like the sort of thing that you didn’t know was on the horizon up front, would be a pretty major rebuild to add in later on.
- barry27 6y ago
  "That said, building something that works well on mobile (re your point b) but also works on internet explorer is a pretty tough ask." Bollocks. Stop talking and start thinking.
- NearAP 6y ago
  >>Internet Explorer has less than a 2% market share in the US, so under normal circumstances (given the sacrifices you’d have to make everywhere else) not bothering to support is is often a sensible decision. When it’s an access to healthcare issue though you can’t really exclude 2% of users.<<< That thinking is exactly the reason why this system turned out to be problematic. Even if it wasn't for healthcare purposes, bottom line is - you have to know who your 'actual users' are. Elderly people (60s and above) are still heavy IE users and so are quite a few government offices. If these 2% of overall browser users are the majority of your users or your early users, then not supporting them becomes a problem.
  - krrrh 6y ago
    Detect IE, redirect to a static site with a 1-800 number, have a call centre staffed with people running Chromebooks schedule an appointment over the phone. Probably cheaper overall, and certainly a better user experience for the tech-challenged seniors.
    - onion2k 6y ago
      Something to note about this strategy is that older versions of IE (10 and older) only support TLS 1.0 by default. Below 8 you're stuck with TLS 1.0 and can't even enable anything higher. So if "https://www.cdc.gov https://www.cdc.gov" is using modern web security IE users won't even get to request data from the server, so you can't detect their browser.
      - user5994461 6y ago
        To add more info. TLS 1.0 is prohibited from usage by many regulations and it will be immediately flagged by any security audit/tools. The government contract most certainly includes clauses about security and following recommended practices. In short, anything below IE 11 is de-facto out of the picture.
jijji 6y ago
alot of these issues can be solved by pushing code to UAT or QA environments and having a bug tracker that allows everyone to submit their bugs. It seems like either none of this happened, or it was rolled out too quickly.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
didibus 6y ago
I agree with you on all those listed points, but I don't know if it's my experience as a software engineer, but all those things you point out in general are something I find developers are cogniciant of, but often the processes in place doesn't allow them to do what's best, instead they are forced to always seek approval and follow stringent specs and requirements even if they don't make sense. If you let qualified engineers drive those instead, in my experience, the end result is always better.

by NearAP 6y ago

db48x 6y ago

Exactly. Civil Engineering does this better, I think. In a civil engineering project such as a bridge, the requirements may be written down by the customer, but the engineering design of the bridge is entirely the responsibility of a single architect. You can pretty much bet that the city council who bought the bridge doesn't know a thing about physics or engineering, so if the bridge falls down it has to be the architect's fault (assuming that it was built according to the plan). This gives the architect the power to say "no" to the customer.

bbeesley 6y ago

Internet Explorer has less than a 2% market share in the US, so under normal circumstances (given the sacrifices you’d have to make everywhere else) not bothering to support is is often a sensible decision. When it’s an access to healthcare issue though you can’t really exclude 2% of users. That said, building something that works well on mobile (re your point b) but also works on internet explorer is a pretty tough ask. No reason you couldn’t build a basic bitches version of the site that works on old devices, then route traffic these based on user agent. Idk, points a through c are basically already solved problems. I’d be disappointed to see problems like that if I was spending $20,000 let alone millions. Issue d though does feel like the sort of thing that you didn’t know was on the horizon up front, would be a pretty major rebuild to add in later on.

barry27 6y ago
"That said, building something that works well on mobile (re your point b) but also works on internet explorer is a pretty tough ask." Bollocks. Stop talking and start thinking.
NearAP 6y ago
>>Internet Explorer has less than a 2% market share in the US, so under normal circumstances (given the sacrifices you’d have to make everywhere else) not bothering to support is is often a sensible decision. When it’s an access to healthcare issue though you can’t really exclude 2% of users.<<< That thinking is exactly the reason why this system turned out to be problematic. Even if it wasn't for healthcare purposes, bottom line is - you have to know who your 'actual users' are. Elderly people (60s and above) are still heavy IE users and so are quite a few government offices. If these 2% of overall browser users are the majority of your users or your early users, then not supporting them becomes a problem.
- krrrh 6y ago
  Detect IE, redirect to a static site with a 1-800 number, have a call centre staffed with people running Chromebooks schedule an appointment over the phone. Probably cheaper overall, and certainly a better user experience for the tech-challenged seniors.
  - onion2k 6y ago
    Something to note about this strategy is that older versions of IE (10 and older) only support TLS 1.0 by default. Below 8 you're stuck with TLS 1.0 and can't even enable anything higher. So if "https://www.cdc.gov https://www.cdc.gov" is using modern web security IE users won't even get to request data from the server, so you can't detect their browser.
    - user5994461 6y ago
      To add more info. TLS 1.0 is prohibited from usage by many regulations and it will be immediately flagged by any security audit/tools. The government contract most certainly includes clauses about security and following recommended practices. In short, anything below IE 11 is de-facto out of the picture.

jijji 6y ago

alot of these issues can be solved by pushing code to UAT or QA environments and having a bug tracker that allows everyone to submit their bugs. It seems like either none of this happened, or it was rolled out too quickly.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

didibus 6y ago

I agree with you on all those listed points, but I don't know if it's my experience as a software engineer, but all those things you point out in general are something I find developers are cogniciant of, but often the processes in place doesn't allow them to do what's best, instead they are forced to always seek approval and follow stringent specs and requirements even if they don't make sense. If you let qualified engineers drive those instead, in my experience, the end result is always better.