So I just tried to take an online quiz that is required for access to certain needed infrastructure in a particular environment I happen to be involved with. The quiz is a way that the environment’s principals can understand that those who access the infrastructure are aware of certain security consequences for poor behavior.
It turns out this quiz has two prerequisite courses, A and B. I’d taken A. On to B. B has no prerequisites. However … I was unable to take course B, because I kept receiving an error message that I must take its prerequisites first. Only it states that there aren’t any …
After a bit, on a lark, I thought, why don’t I just try to take the quiz? So I tried that. However, in order to take the quiz, one must first enroll to take it. I could not find a page allowing me to press an “enroll” button, only pages containing a “take the quiz” button. I finally found a way: one can search on the quiz’s course number; this gives one a different screen than before; the new screen had an “enroll” button.
I enrolled. I was now 20 minutes into a process to take a 10 minute quiz.
So finally, I took the quiz. Again, it has prerequisite courses A and B, but the system didn’t require me to have taken them this time. I clearly have not taken B but it did not seem to matter.
Anyway, I didn’t pass: 68%, 70% required. I figure this is par for taking a quiz where I have been unable to take one of the two prerequisite courses! There were acronyms I did not understand. There was English so horribly written no one could understand. There were multi-selects where I got 2 selected but a 3rd was required and where I got 3 selected but one was incorrect – and both of these situations are “entirely incorrect” answers in this quiz’s architecture.
No matter, I simply took the quiz again. Immediately. Now that I knew how to take it, I scored a 96%. What, not 100%? Hah! There were some new questions asked in place of old ones, but not too many. Of course, I still do not know the acronyms. I still do not understand some of the concepts.
Total time to take 10 minute quiz and pass: 45 minutes. Almost no new knowledge gained. No wonder productivity is poor and frustration high.