The whole "click fast or die" race is ridiculous, cruel and unnecessary in any case. It's especially burdensome for seniors or anyone not used to filling out long forms on the internet which is a skill in and of itself learned through experience. Have a 3-day sign up so there's no overload on the servers, then do a lottery for the number of people equal to the number of vaccines available plus another dozen or more for no shows. As it is these systems favor people who can type fast and click their mouse fast and have a fast internet connection. How can that be fair? The only internet a lot of low income people have is through their phones and these applications almost never work well on a phone.
That's a good point about seniors. I was doing something similar helping my mom in Illinois get an appointment, and at her age, 91, while she's adept at using her ipad, there's no way she can navigate the confusion of the Hunger Games, as a friend called this, of trying to race to get an appointment. It's almost as if this is the first time they've ever had to design something like this, and I have a hard time believing that's the case.
I write applications like this and these are some of the worst I've seen. I live in Washington state and I can't believe they couldn't ask Microsoft or Amazon designers to put together a system and then hosted it on AWS so it could handle the load. Having worked for a state government on a couple of contracts their technology and their technology people are not cutting edge. I'm sure they're fine people trying to do their best but they just don't have the background and infrastructure to handle this kind of thing.
And honestly, who would put Captcha on something like this? How are they going to resell tickets, when there are no tickets, and you have to give you name and address the moment you sign up, AND you have to be THAT person or they won't let you in for the shot. So how does Captcha even help?
What a nightmare. I've heard numerous stories of friends trying to sign up their parents or grandparents online because it's just not gonna happen if many seniors are on their own.
The whole "click fast or die" race is ridiculous, cruel and unnecessary in any case. It's especially burdensome for seniors or anyone not used to filling out long forms on the internet which is a skill in and of itself learned through experience. Have a 3-day sign up so there's no overload on the servers, then do a lottery for the number of people equal to the number of vaccines available plus another dozen or more for no shows. As it is these systems favor people who can type fast and click their mouse fast and have a fast internet connection. How can that be fair? The only internet a lot of low income people have is through their phones and these applications almost never work well on a phone.
That's a good point about seniors. I was doing something similar helping my mom in Illinois get an appointment, and at her age, 91, while she's adept at using her ipad, there's no way she can navigate the confusion of the Hunger Games, as a friend called this, of trying to race to get an appointment. It's almost as if this is the first time they've ever had to design something like this, and I have a hard time believing that's the case.
I write applications like this and these are some of the worst I've seen. I live in Washington state and I can't believe they couldn't ask Microsoft or Amazon designers to put together a system and then hosted it on AWS so it could handle the load. Having worked for a state government on a couple of contracts their technology and their technology people are not cutting edge. I'm sure they're fine people trying to do their best but they just don't have the background and infrastructure to handle this kind of thing.
And honestly, who would put Captcha on something like this? How are they going to resell tickets, when there are no tickets, and you have to give you name and address the moment you sign up, AND you have to be THAT person or they won't let you in for the shot. So how does Captcha even help?
What a nightmare. I've heard numerous stories of friends trying to sign up their parents or grandparents online because it's just not gonna happen if many seniors are on their own.