Web usability guru Jakob Nielsen posits in his latest monthly Alertbox article that what children need is not instruction on how to use Microsoft products (or Google apps or any other proprietary applications); just sit them in front of these and most will grasp the skills themselves far quicker than we can teach them – and many know more than their teachers. Besides, the current versions of these applications will be superseded in a few years’ time. What they need instead is to learn Life-Long Computer Skills. Nielsen suggests teaching them:

• how to formulate search strategies
• how to assess information credibility
• how to deal with information overload
• how to write for online readers
• how to make computer presentations (and, no, Powerpoint is not to blame for bad presentations)
• about workspace ergonomics
• how to “debug” at a basic level
• how to facilitate “easy interactions” – problem solving, understanding the relation between concepts, and interpersonal communication

It’s not just kids of course. 90 per cent of the adult population could use this instruction too. But let me slip one basic skill in at the top of the list – how to engage your brain when surfing the net. I am continually amazed at how many people call infolaw up, usually having clicked through from the limited context of a Google result, asking if we can help with this or provide that or comment on the other when the scope and detail of the particular service we provide are well described on the web page in front of them. What they are asking for is clearly not what we provide, but they just don’t read the page or, if they do, think to click back and continue their trawl through the search results, they phone us up instead. I’m tempted to, but never of course do, say – because some of these nice people do turn into customers – “I’ve got better things to do than read aloud to you, mate. Read The F****** Page In Front Of You.”