The San Jose police chief, Rob Davis, said that those who were in charge of planning for the new system 'have reviewed it and in retrospect would probably agree that if they had involved more of the end users during the planning phase it would have made the rollout easier.'
The fact that the officers and police dispatchers were not consulted about their preferences and requirements has come back to haunt the city. In July, the union asked for meetings to discuss the new system, saying it was having an adverse impact on officer safety. "Legally, they can't just implement something like this unilaterally," said John Tennant, general counsel for the union.
Even after some extensive tweaking, there still seem to be some fundamental bugs, Mr. Marcus said. "Much of the design was incorporating a Windows desktop graphical user interface with complex menu hierarchies, which just doesn't make sense in a vehicle."
KATIE HAFNER, "Wanted by the Police: A Good Interface," The New York Times, 11 Nov 2004. via Gunnar Swanson on the AIGA Experience Design mailing list
