Technology Literacy

Spore is a technologically advanced country. However, in this advanced pace, its surprising that there is also a large group of people who go up and about their life in the most traditional ways; not owning or using a mobile phone, not using the atm machine and go into the banks to do their transaction, queuing up to top-up their ez-link card at the counter(I cant remember the last time I joined the queue at the counter to top-up my ez-link card) and many more.

My 78 y/o grandma is one of the large group of people who do things the traditional way, even if it means taking a bus and queuing for half n hour or so just to perform a simple transaction. I asked her several times about it and she said " Ai yah, I'm so old. The ATM machine words are too small and too fast for me. So many options, I dont know which button to press. The bank counter is better, the cashiers at the bank counter are helpful."

In grandma's words, the bank counter cashier is more user-friendly. I feel grandma could take more autonomy in her own transactions and after some thoughts, I decide to do an experiment; to take "baby steps" to convince grandma to use the ATM machine. So I wrote a simple application (I named it Withdraw.apps and wrote the program using JBuilder) , which has the options of an ATM machine and a log in module (authentication module). I went to sim lim square to look for a numerical keypad (so it looks just like the normal ATM machine keypad) and a couple of weeks later, I got it up n running.

The most difficult part was convincing grandma to use the application. I racked my brain cells and told her I was testing out a sch assignment for elderly use and grandma said she would help me. So grandma got down at my laptop and started learning to use the "ATM machine app" for the very first time! After a number of trys, grandma said she's getting use to the application. I told her it works just like an ATM machine and took the opportunity to convince grandma to use a real ATM machine.

A few days later, we were in the bank and grandma applied for an ATM card. We went to the ATM machine outside the bank and I could feel the moment coming. I watched with bated breath as my grandma started typing the options into the atm machine and after 30secs the machine chunked and soon, grandma turned with her ATM card and two $10 dollar notes in her hands! Yes! Grandma did it! I apologized to grandma and told her the truth that it was not for my sch project. She said that I was very cheeky =p

Anyway, I believe if anyone would learn, technology is not as difficult or complicated as one would perceive it is.