The computer is perhaps the most sophisticated tool mankind has yet developed but it has often been misused with man made to serve the tool rather than vice versa. This paper attempts to examine the genesis of this chaos, contrast the present situation with the ideal, and present a reasonable alternative. A humanized data service in education is possible. Such an alternative could be achieved by realizing that the computer is there to serve the needs of the students and their education, by developing a staff capable of talking to users in their own terms, by carefully assessing users' needs, by considering a system's long-term usefulness, and by taking into account such issues as structure of the data files, non-numeric computing, and rigidity vs. flexibility. This paper cites an example of this type of user orientation in a data processing staff of 18 full-time people serving approximately 50,000 students in 16 independent school districts. One third of the total staff is devoted full time to user coordination and liaison. There is evidence of strong user orientation in the development of user manuals, simple report specifications, a great variety of options on each report, and a network of user committees. (VT)