Irene Shopping

‘I went to a computer class today. How do I use your father’s computer?’ This was Irene on the phone, twice a great grandmother, who had never used a computer before in her life. This came out of the blue, and was the last thing we had expected.

Irene is an 88 year old who in her early years was a hairdresser, then with a busy family life and young children, never learned to drive. She now lives on the outskirts of a small town which does not have fast transport links, on the UK east coast. Being widowed a year ago she naturally felt very isolated and dependent on others. Her family are supportive although they live many hours travel away.

Lifts from friends, use of taxis or local community transport, walking short distances in good weather, and even local buses are all used sometimes to get about. Irene has suffered falls, on one occasion breaking a hip, so that even though she is quite prepared to make efforts, travel decisions, including for shopping, are made with some care.

When her technically minded husband was alive, he occasionally used an old computer for printing lists. Irene never used it herself. When, sadly, she found herself on her own, the computer remained unused.

But desperation turned Irene’s thoughts towards the computer. To the great surprise of her family, who are all computer literate, Irene informed them that she was attending computer classes in a local adult class. Surprise is an understatement. The motive was soon clear. Shopping.

The course she had found locally, and joined, was for 2 hours, twice a week – a foundation course in computing.

Says Irene ‘The first time I went, there was a big screen on the wall. We didn’t touch a PC’. ‘I went to two more lessons. I was typing out columns and paragraphs of text from a book’. ‘I did not even learn how to turn a computer on or off.’ ‘I do not think I learned anything’.

Irene was clear that she wanted to do shopping on line and the teacher explained that this course was not suitable for that. The teacher said she would try to get Irene onto a particular 6 week course, although Irene says she heard nothing more.  Irene left the course and looks back on it saying it was a ‘waste of time’.

By this time her family had got over their surprise about the turn of events, and not knowing where it might all lead, they had decided that the ancient computer her husband had used was not good for a novice who would do online shopping.

A family member had recently been given a discarded a computer from a friend, and this computer was prepared for Irene’s use. Irene also got connected to broadband internet, an activity which revealed an interesting ‘catch 22′ situation where communication, letters, passwords and emails were expected to be dealt with by the elderly novice householder, not by another person (a relative) living on the other side of the country who wanted to make all the arrangements. It was resolved with the help of, thankfully, some common sense and understanding by the Internet Service Provider (ISP).

The family are users of Ubuntu linux, and also had a lot of experience with helping vulnerable novices, so Ubuntu was judged ideal in terms of ease of use and dependable security.

The broadband connection and the computer were set up during the next family visit. Things were easily arranged so that there was a User account appropriate for what Irene needed, and that the administration of the computer was well protected.

Menus were also easily trimmed to contain only useful items, and the display resolution and font sizes were set to be suitable for a user who did not always wear glasses, even when needed.

The area is served by one of the big supermarket chains for delivery after online shopping. An account was registered.

The computer, the broadband unit, speakers, desk lamp etc were connected from a single mains wall socket, which would be turned off when not in use. The web browser (Firefox) on the computer was arranged so that it started up automatically when the computer started up, and also that its home page was the supermarket shopping site.

After the original activity of installing the equipment and setting up, time only allowed a couple of hours for Irene to have one-to-one instruction for her first ever online shopping experience. It had been hoped that this would be a trial shop of only a couple of items.

However, two hours and two dozen items later, Irene was shepherded though the ‘Shopping Delivery slot’ calendar, and then the ‘Checkout’ sign off.  She had survived the unfamiliarity, the searches, the unpractised novice wandering cursor, and the brutal formality of the checkout, all successfully.

The shopping delivery arrived on schedule in a couple of days, to the delight of all concerned.

Some days later, a bit of family remote support was needed to help with Irene getting her next order through the checkout successfully. It turned out that the entry field which needed the credit card number was being given the text name of the bank instead. This confusion was soon cleared up and another successful delivery was soon on its way.

One unexpected bonus Irene noticed with online shopping was – Ice Cream! Online shopping resulted in delivery of ice cream straight from a freezer to the door.

The following week, the checkout activity again did not go smoothly, and the shopping basket stayed full, refusing to get through the checkout. The family later learned that Irene had then decided to use the telephone help line shown on the shopping site to sort things out.  With indomitable persistence, the help line was phoned four times in different ways and combinations until she got through to someone who understood the problem, who could see her full shopping basket and could accept the credit card number over the phone. Another successful delivery. And congratulations for using the helpline successfully!

Around this time Irene was in conversation with another person who had been going to the computer classes for two years. He was pleased to say he could now manipulate a printer font to be upside down. Irene asked if he could do online shopping. ‘No’ he replied. ‘What’s the good of that then? Irene asked.

About a week later, Irene’s next shopping event went smoothly with no outside support needed. A real first!

In the space of about 4 weeks, Irene had graduated to independence for her online grocery shopping in the alien world of computers and online shopping. This had been with remarkably little help, because although family support was available, it was by phone or remote help on request.

Irene’s skills with the mouse needed as much practice as possible and a good way to get enjoyable exercise has been to play an on screen game such as Majhong. The rules were explained over the phone.

The next family visit to Irene was not long after, and it happened that Irene had been considering making an existing spare room into a more comfortable bedroom, replacing an existing old bed. Her daughter suggested using the broadband connected computer to buy – not groceries this time – but a bed. It would save at least one lengthy round trip to the nearest large town, and would hopefully offer a more convenient choice.

With the experienced help of her daughter, Irene now saw further benefit from having a broadband internet connection. Choosing a reliable retailer came first, then identifying a suitable replacement bed and finally deciding and arranging delivery – all when sitting comfortably, with her daughter, and with a cup of tea.

The bed was delivered four days later. Irene was impressed.

She is going from strength to strength with her confidence in using the computer. She can mostly now do what she wants, shopping, on her own, and has even checked her email. Having the computer and the basic skills has helped a lot and she says it has ‘brought my independence back’.

Technical stuff:

Grocery shopping via Tesco http://www.tesco.com

Bed shopping from John Lewis http://www.johnlewis.com

The computer is a recycled gift, tower, Tiny PC Pentium III 500 MHz, 384MB RAM, 20GB HD, CD ROM.

Monitor is CRT 17 inch.

Modem/router is Netgear DG834GT, wireless turned off.

Operating System is Ubuntu 8.04 LTS. Community based software, free of charge.

User account – non admin, reduced menus, panels and menus locked.

Web browsing is with Firefox.

Email is with Thunderbird.

Remote help facility is via Remote Desktop (VNC) through secure shell tunnel (ssh).

Dynamic DNS used to facilitate secure remote access connection. (Free account).

Broad band is 2MB, ISP is UKOnline.net, with modem router. (Lite package).