librarian.net : On The Fly Tech Support : HLA, 11nov06

tell Burning Man/WTO anecdote

"Something funny happened on the road to the digital library of the future, though.

Far from becoming keepers of the keys to the Grand Database of Universal Knowledge, today's librarians are increasingly finding themselves in an unexpected, overloaded role:

They have become the general public's last-resort providers of tech support."
(Salon 02dec97)
tell Department of libraries anecdote

[thanks to Gregg for the image]
[one]

You provide the computers, patrons use the computers.
What else do you need to know....?
the best defense is a good DIP!
DOCUMENTATION -- where is it?
INTERNET POLICY -- where is it?
PASSWORDS -- where are they?
WHAT DOES NORMAL LOOK LIKE HERE?
FOUR THINGS: 1) setting expectations 2) communicating the current state of affairs 3) hopefully fixing whatever's immediately broken 4) working to fix the meta problem in the future tell bill of rights anecdote, health insurance

[two]

Appearances matter. - computers tell the right time
- flat screens = modern! OLC anecdote
- clean keyboards and mice
- enough room for book/writing/whatever
- headphones or place to put them
- USB plug or place to put them
- make sure you have current: operating system, browser(s), plug-ins (flash, shockwave, adobe), drivers, office tools

[three]

It happens to all librarians. You're having a nice day and then

Now what? [this is where it starts, patron is thinking
"Did I lose my work?"
"Is my disk/thumb drive broken?"
"Can I get more time to finish?"

You are thinking "is this going to take all day"
"is this patron going to flip out on me?"
"can I actually fix this?"]

[thanks to etech for the image]
[four]

The tech support equivalent is hardware, software or PEBKAC?

How do you decide?

[pebkac is not something you ever say to patrons, they tend not to like it]

[five]

Ask:

[you are the smiling buddha]

"Explain the problem in your own words."
"What were you doing when this happened?" "I just pushed my chair out and..."
"What are you trying to do?" [can they do that here? sometimes users *think* they want to do one thing when they really need to do another....]

Think:

Remember our model patrons, try to gauge who you are dealing with.

[thanks to dharmaphotographs for the image]
[six]

Technostress & Emotional Computer Relationship Troubles ---------> [is the patron having an anger, fear or confusion-based response to the problem? do you need to deal with that first?]
Standard failure modes [is the window off the screen? did they click in another window? did a pop-up obscure their window? do they have more than one window open? did they move the start bar someplace crazy?]
Windows failure modes (not strickly PEBKAC)

[thankks to kaptainkobold for the image]
[seven]

[examples: 404 pages, browser/window freeze, firewall prevents download, can't right-click]

Is this a software support issue? [How do you deal with those?]
Is this a system-specific failure mode? [is there a firewall issue? is there a system protection issue? is there a "not enough privileges" issue?]
Can you explain the problem? [sometimes users just want an answer, there is nothing actually broken]
What is the ENTIRE error message, all of it, yes ALL of it. Word for word. Write it down.

[eight]

[monitor story. examples: monitor off, keyboard not typing, freeze up.]

other computers - what's going on nearby? quick scan.
how responsive is it?
cables?
cords?
power buttons?
catastrophe? [mother's day busy signal]

[the basic troubleshoot is to replace each cable one at a time with known working cables until you've isolated the problem, if you can. Do you know who to call if there is a problem outside your immediate area, upstream provider? ISP?]

[thanks to gordonrobertson for the image]
[nine]

Reality testing "Is this a thing I think a computer can do?" "Is this a thing I think our computers can do?"
JGI, seriously. [this is where that error message comes in handy]
Where do preferences hide? [Internet: control panel, and network, in addition to being in IE. Word: tools > options/customize. What else is in the control panel? printers, users, network, system (drivers), display (desktop images), add/remove programs, date/time]
Software/Hardware support forums, both kinds
- Official: Microsoft, Apple, Hewlett Packard
- Unofficial: Annoyances.org (Windows), Mac OSX hints
- Chatty: web4lib, code4lib, publib, IM someone?

[ten]

[NO: "the computer has issues"]

"My Yahoo is broken." [with a car it's spark, gas, air. with the web it's cables, literal network, virutal network, your computer, their computer. know how to debug an email address and a web address and a link: NO SPACES, no funny characters except the @, the little squiggle is a tilde, standard endings for URLs and email]
"Where's my web page?" [look for error codes: 404, 401, &c., look for common URL spellings and know how your browser deals with them (IE may search from the address bar, for example), look for capitalization, look for broken links if someone's clicking through from an email]
"What am I supposed to do here?" [example from immigration page. remember that new users read every web page all the way through, try to teach them to look for action buttons or links. you are not repsonsible for all the bad web design in the world.]
Reality testing: "My bank needs me to enter my social security number...." "I want to sell this on Ebay in 45 minutes."[How to mouseover a link to see where it really goes. What is phishing]

[thanks to premii for the image]
[eleven]

"Nothing happened" [popup blocker, do you even allow downloading? is there a hidden "save as" window someplace]
"Where is my file?" [well what's it called? where did you put it? set default downloads location that isn't the INTERNET cache. sometimes you can look on the Documents menu. Search by time when all else fails]
"My attachment won't attach" [attaching takes time and usually one too many steps, sometimes you need to know the letter of the drive if you're using a firewallish thinglike deep freeze, yes you have to click "open" to attach something, no it makes no sense.]
"This attachment is like a brick on my desktop!" [explain the "must have appplication" aspects to attachments]

[thanks to lordrich for the image]
[twelve]

"The computer keeps changing what I type" [is autocorrect turned on? autoformatting? remember to check both places]
"It says go to file print but there IS NO FILE PRINT." [menu hiding? disable that entirely if you can, make sure they understand three step menus. the printbutton does NOT do what the print command does]
"Make that paper clip go away forever." [the office assistant can be hid one time, per session, generally, or removed entirely from your word install]

[thanks to antonescurazvan for the image]
[thirteen]

Note: a lot of this varies depending on the printer

"I want to print just what I'm looking at." [make sure they get that a web page is just one big long pagecheck to see if you have a print selection option]
"My document doesn't fit on the page." [see if there is a "print this page" option, there should be a way to scale pages when printing, usually by percentages or just "fit on page" sometimes you can span multiple pages, sometimes this just won't work]
"I can't afford all these pages." [2-up! hard to read but saves paper]

[thanks to omestes for the image]
[fourteen]

So, now everyone's happy...

How can you track what you did this time?
What can you do next time?
How can you make the connection between what you did and what others can do in the future?

[thanks to powerbooktrance for the image]
[questions]

[thanks to tj scenes for the image]
[resources]

This is funny because it is true
I have heard good things about WebJunction
TechSoup is a great resource for nonprofits managing technology. I even wrote an article for them: "Securing public PCs without shutting out users"
Consistent Computer Bargains - good for shopping/advice
Click the "printable" link on the next slide to get a version of this talk with all my notes.

[credits]

Jessamyn West is the editor of the weblog librarian.net and the co-editor of Revolting Librarians Redux. She used to do phone and email tech support at Speakeasy Networks She works as a community technology mentor with people and libraries in Central Vermont. IM her at iamthebestartist.

This presentation was created in HTML using CSS. There was no PowerPoint involved in this presentation except as a nagging bad example. The layout and stylesheet are available to borrow via a share and share alike creative commons license. See source code for details.

slides version | printable version

On The Fly Tech Support

"Hey, this isn't my job!"

What Are We Up Against?

Getting our Ducks in a Row

Setting the Stage

Let's Start Getting Our Hands Dirty

Animal, Vegetable, Mineral?

First Steps

Breaking it Down: PEBKAC

Breaking it Down: Software

Breaking it Down: Hardware/Network

Basic Troubleshooting

Specifics: The Web

Specifics: Uploading/Downloading

Specifics: MS Word

Specifics: Printers

Follow-up

Questions?

Resources

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