How do you get a grizzled veteran police officer who is used to filling out paper forms to use a computer to process his arrests and casework—especially when he has little or no experience using a computer? That was the problem facing the Chicago Police Department when it decided to implement a relational database system. The system is capable of churning through massive amounts of data to give officers the information they need to fight crime more effectively.
Initially, the department rolled out the case component of the CLEAR (Citizen Law Enforcement Analysis and Reporting) system that provided criminal history and arrest records. The officers hated it, complaining that the system was not user-friendly, that approval from supervisors was complex and involved multiple screens, and that they did not feel properly trained on the system. After listening to the officers’ complaints for a year, the department clearly had to do something.

a. Identify as many system analysis and design problems as you can.
b. What could the department have done differently to prevent the officers’ complaints?
c. What principles of system analysis and design were violated in this case?