Back when I was working in Computer Services at Syracuse University, we had
what we called the 95/95 rule. We tried to teach 95% of the people the stuff
that they'd want to use 95% of the time. Maybe this 95% was only 20% of the
feature set of Microsoft Word, 5% of the feature set of Excel, 10% of the
feature set of Eudora, and nothing of Pagemaker or Adobe Illustrator, but if
we could take care of 95% of what 95% of the people needed, we were happy
and so were they.
If you wanted to take the time to become a power user in any or all of the
programs, that was nice too, but we really wanted to make sure that you were
at least a 95/95 user.
I think that Greg's five-step user is our 95/95 user. Why should a person
take the time to memorize things that they'll almost never use? Those five
steps they've written down are the only things they ever use the system for,
and they work 95% of the time. And we all know from the 80/20 rule that
getting up to 100% competency would likely take four times as long as it did
for them to get where they are now. When you do the math, one can easily see
how it just might not seem worth it.
--
keg
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Keith E Gatling - Computer Instructor
Manlius Pebble Hill School
5300 Jamesville Rd
DeWitt, NY 13214
315.446.2452
http://www.gatling.us/keith
Some teachers teach subjects. Others teach students.
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