consistency is a lovely thing

Since Oracle certifications are tied to version numbers, they periodically announce the retirements of old exams. This is reasonable. They even publish a page of retiring exams and include this fact on the all exams list.

However, this is incomplete and currently inconsistent.

The retiring exam page currently lists the Java 7 certs, but not the Java EE 6 certs. On the other hand, if you go to the page for a Java EE cert that is retiring, it says in the title that the exam is retiring.

On the third hand, if you go to a page for a Java 7 cert that is retiring, it does not say anywhere on that page that it is retiring.

I hope Oracle fixes this. It’s confusing!

first volunteer coordinator – usability – a click analysis

I am co-volunteer coordinator for the NYC FRC (FIRST Robotics Competition) regional. The volunteer system could have better usability.  I’ve been thinking about writing up a “click analysis” for common workflows. The idea being that good usability shouldn’t take a large number of clicks to do something common. When my friend asked how to cancel an application, I finally decided to it.  (cancelling is at most 4 clicks once logged in which isn’t bad. )

But on to the most common volunteer task once you are logged in as a volunteer coordinator. How many clicks and are they all necessary.

Accepting a volunteer – 9-12 clicks

  1. Click on the regional name [if you only manage one event, this click should be inferred and not something you have to do each time]
  2. Click on the role you want to assign
  3. If you don’t already know the person, right click their name for details (to open in a new tab)
    1. Click current applications
    2. Click assignment history
  4. Either drag the person’s name to the table at the bottom or click the checkbox and then
    “move applicant into schedule”. I find dragging slower, so this is two clicks for me.
  5. Drag tentative to the table once per day the person wants to volunteer. (Or drag once and expand the bar to cover all the days). So this is 1-3 click/drags
  6. Click complete assignment
  7. Click checkbox for name again
  8. Click assign and notify selected
  9. Type message
  10. Send

Seeing all unassigned volunteers = 3 + 2n

There’s a report called “all unassigned volunteers”. But it doesn’t have links from the person’s name to their profile. Which means you can’t assign from there and have to do it the long way.

  1. Click on the regional name
  2. Click a role. Ideally without any unassigned volunteers
  3. Click unassigned applicants
  4. Right click each to open new tab
  5. Click current applications

 

 

how to cancel when volunteering for first (frc/ftc/fll)

A friend asked me how to switch from one volunteer event to another on firstinpires.org. It isn’t intuitive at all.

The answer:

  1. Logon to firstinspires.org
  2. Click “My dashboard”

If you were already assigned to the role

  1. Expand “assigned event volunteer roles”
  2. Click “Role options” pull down
  3. Click message coordinator and write a message that switched to Saturday

If you were not yet  assigned to the role

  1. Expand “pending applications”
  2. Click “Role options” pull down
  3. Click “withdraw application”
  4. Click “withdraw”
  5. Hope it worked. The role still appears in your list so you aren’t automatically withdrawn (not great usability)