by: George Starcher, Associate Editor

I have been reading up on the IT project disaster that is the 2010 paperless Census. You can read some details over on the Computer World article. Engadget also had a short writeup. In a nutshell a complete miscommunication by the Census Bureau and the contracting firm, Harris Corp. Ever changing technical requirements seem to be the most cited issue. Add to it how the pda Harris is using is so complex it confuses the heck out of the census workers. No kidding. Check out the photo of this monster below.

Uploaded with plasq‘s Skitch!

May I say one thing to the government and to Harris? iPhone SDK! Come on. How on earth can anyone be expected to use that ugly thing? Imagine walking door to door all day long. Trying to find your way around with that little screen, your hands sweating and getting dirt in all those keys. Imagine now a nice simple iPhone app or even iPod touch. A clear icon for Man, Woman, girl, boy. Touch and slide your finger to input a count. Sure the data collected may be more complicated but I bet a clever developer can fix that up real quick. Side to side swiping perhaps?  Tie in google maps… Well you get the idea. And I bet being a census worker is both taxing and low paying. So load on some music for them as they go door to door and they might actually be motivated in addition to NOT confused on how to enter the census data. And no stylus to lose either.

Heck I go to the Big Nerd Ranch ObjectiveC/Cocoa bootcamp in October. Maybe I will make my learning project doing up a census program. If I even get a fraction of the money we wasted on this fiasco I could retire.