What’s it about?
As a student who has been around the campus for two and a half years, I always take the “Follow-Me” Printing service for granted without actually “seeing” it until some of our graduated alumni commented on how terrible the printing systems were on their campus (Reichenstein, 2013). Then I started to appreciate the convenience and be grateful at the great printing network we have around campus. The Follow Me Printing is absolutely one of the best service designs that come up on my mind.
Convenience: The system reduces human labor.
On one hand, our “Follow-Me” Printing requires no extra human effort, everything could be done online effortlessly. Students could simply log in to “My Print Center” to upload their documents or email webprint[at]bucknell[dot]edu to get their documents ready for print release. Some printers would have paper around them, so students could refill themselves. However, if the system allows us to specify where we want the printout to be online and print it right away, it will probably save our time waiting in line for the printer to be available for us.
Accessibility: You could get your printout at any time and any place.
No matter when you are rushing a paper in the middle of the night at 7thstreet café or running to an 8-am class at 7:55 in the morning, you could always find a printer among 24 different ones on campus, swipe your ID and print 24–7.
Accessories: Always keep the system in good conditions.
If one of the machines is not working for any reason, there will be a very-detailed, visualized tutorial on the screen for students to follow, check and try to make the printer work. For example, the tutorial would ask students to locate and check the ink or paper and see if they are in good conditions. In that way, students could fix the printer by themselves and get it run immediately. If students couldn’t manage to make the printer back to function, there is a number in a huge font that is unique for each printer. Anyone would know how to contact L&IT to fix the specific printer. Thanks to our staff, I’ve never seen any single printer that is out of order for more than a day.
Last but not least, unlike on some other campus, printing at Bucknell University is free, which is the best of all.: )
References:
Reichenstein, O. (2013, March 19). Learning to See — iA. Retrieved January 21, 2019, from https://ia.net/topics/learning-to-see
Where are Follow-Me Printers on campus? (2015, March 10). Retrieved from http://ask.bucknell.edu/?p=1773
Bucknell L&IT. (n.d.). Where are Follow-Me Printers on campus? [Map].
