Blogborygmi: Common disaster

Common disaster

I know this town. In the issue of another disaster in NYC, I wish to be capable to help. So, years ago, I signed up for the NYC Medical Reserve Corps. While I thought my services as an emergency physician might be of benefit someday, now I question if the most urgent need was for an interface & usability expert.

Either that, or age of Google and Apple interfaces have spoiled me to the place where navigating forms online is pretty much unbearable. The way I understood NYC Medical Reserve Corps (MRC) is this: you signed up. You have some details about yourself and your skill set. You have contact info. The city calls or emails you periodically to control your info. We all stand ready to help. Members recently got a stir of emails about some kind of upgrade. New logins would be necessary, more features, etc. Here's one small segment of the process:

• Scroll down to "To get a volunteer, click on the Union Now button."
• Enter NYC MRC ID and ServNY password, Click on `Log In`.
• When prompted, enter NYC MRC PIN, Click on `Continue`.
• To "Support your identity"; Enter last 4 digits of phone number or 5 digit zip code.
• Click on `Continue`. You get now `claimed` NYC MRC records. Continue to Step 3.

But first you've got to get a ServNY userID:

• Change drop down box "NYC MRC ID" to `Yes`.
• Enter NYC MRC ID and NYC MRC PIN from Go Live/Welcome letter. Case-sensitive.NOTE: PIN is listed as "password" in Go Live/Welcome letter.

It goes on and on like this, forcing you to relate to information from multiple websites and emails. As you meet in the fields, there's often no indication when something worked or didn't. I thought I realised the action on various occasions, only to be ineffectual to login later, or get a reminder email asking me to echo the same steps. To be fair, NYC MRC has offered to help, and set up phone numbers and best step-by-step guides. But I'm also not sure why we're still being constrained to re-register. Don't they already have my contact info? Isn't that pretty much all that's needed? I think, like with many systems and institutions, something got lost on the line, and a mere volunteer network became a massive bureaucracy. The mere act of offering to help, and providing contact information, is now insufficient. There's too many hoops to rise through, for the favour of helping New Yorkers.