We Aren't Going to Make This Easy

 

About one-third of those people waiting for their $600 stimulus payment have not received it, due to an error wherein it was sent to a temporary account set up by their last year's tax preparer (TurboTax, H&R Block, for example) and then bounced back to the IRS.  Actually, an error or two is understandable given the very short time they had to get the program out.  What is not understandable is the answer people got upon visiting the IRS website to find out what was going on (the foregoing information not being available):  "Payment Status #2 -- Not Available."  What that was, of course, was not defined.  (It means " when your $600 is returned to us by the old tax preparer, you must claim a Recovery Rebate Credit on your 2020 tax return to be filed after the end of January 2021").  Even if you understood that's what "Payment Status #2" meant, which you would not, how would the average person preparing their own return know to claim that to finally receive their stimulus,  sometime in the Spring after they had gone bankrupt from unpaid bills ?

Bad design, in the software programming/web design world or of physical things is design that doesn't work for normal people, doesn't make sense and is not clear or intuitive.   Is that too much to ask, and why must things be so frustrating, so Byzantine, for no good reason? 

 Compare the current-day car dashboard, if it can be called that, with the one just above.  A study showed that most people only use six of the information screen's hundreds of functions hidden behind one menu after another.  Heaven has forbidden, it seems,  that words or understandable abbreviations be used instead of obscure and silly icons. 

The digital speed display is much more clear and easy to read quickly than an old-fashioned analog dial.  However, while looking at the information screen which is not directly in front of you for five seconds, at 65 miles per hour, means you have gone 475 feet with your eyes off the road.  "Danger, Will Robinson!"  

Now I will freely admit to being Old School, and we all prefer what we're familiar with, past days being so much better and all that.  But I'm not reactionary, afraid of change or unimpressed by the rapid positive advances we encounter each year, like solar power, electric vehicles, better medicine or even those potentially life-saving home security or auto backup cameras.  And quick home delivery of practically anything we might want or need?  Yes, please. 

But things do not have to be done so badly!