Living With Complexity

Reference
Living With Complexity
- Donald A. Norman

Summary
Norman’s general theme for this book was why complexity exists and why it plagues people so much.  Complexity must exist, because our lives are complex in nature.  Some ideas and tasks are complex, so naturally their designs must also be complex.  However, he explains that complex designs can be catered the right group of people and by doing so this avoids unnecessary complications in the design.  Poor designs in general result from the failure to properly implement a complex or even simple concept.  The first place to start in avoiding complications is with a good conceptual model of the design.  Without a deep understanding of the problem and final goal, proper inner workings of the design to streamline cannot be possible.

Even when designs are simple in nature and relatively straightforward, many different designs all geared towards the same purpose can be extremely confusing.  People grow accustomed to performing an action in a certain way.  When a slightly different way is presented, this  can really throw a person off.  If the design utilizes visual cues, this can greatly decrease the chances of this problem from being a concern.  Another way people can help themselves is to use their social signifiers.  In the case of the door knob, people can pay attention to how others react to it and then no longer have the problem of figuring it out on their own on the fly.

Discussion
Like Norman’s other books, he takes a relatively simple idea and helps you to look at it from a different perspective.  I had never really noticed so many well-designed complex systems before.  They were always there, but it took looking at a concept differently to truly pick up on these small details.  This also helps me to see the poorly designed implementations of things.  Organizing complex options and features can be a difficult task, but all it takes sometimes is coming up with a sufficient conceptual model to see a clever way of laying things out.  I hope to remain to be more aware of these things in the future and not fall prey to creating a truly terrible design myself.

Paper Reading 25 – Finding Your Way in a Multi-dimensional Semantic Space with Luminoso

Comments
Paola Garza
Steven Hennessy

Reference Information
Finding Your Way in a Multi-dimensional Semantic Space with Luminoso
 - Robert Speer, Catherine Havasi, Nichole Treadway, and Henry Lieberman
 - IUI 2010, Hong Kong, China

Summary
The authors of this paper presented a program called Luminoso.  They explained how massive amount of semantic data, such as that from a mass survey, can be very difficult to sort through and form conclusions from.  This is especially true when user free response sections are available for the user to fill in.  What they propose is forming relationships between all of this data and representing it in a multi-dimensional space.  This is exactly what they accomplished with Luminoso.

The main view of the Luminoso interface.

The described the program as appearing similarly to Google Maps in how the user can interact with it.  Each node stands for a particular topic or area, and the more elements that relate to this area, the large the node becomes.  Then related areas branch off of this, and so on.  These clusters form abstract representation in the space.  One of the key features they included was the ability for the user to drag individual nodes in order to realign the focus of the overall arrangement of data.  This allows the user to concentrate on a specific opinion type in a survey for example and see all the various elements relating to it.  The designers argue that using a system like Luminoso to visualize data will become increasingly important as semantic networks continue to grow.

Discussion
I’ll be honest and say some of the content of this paper went a little over my head.  But I do understand the general concept of it all.  One thing I learned from this is that writing anything in the free response sections of a survey is apparently pointless when the survey audience is extremely large.  This is probably obvious to most though.  If no one is going to read it, there really isn’t any point to writing anything in those sections.  However, they mentioned they could group these free response areas with the applicable clusters of data making it easier to view on a handful at a time.  I have never thought of any major needs for a system like Luminoso, but they have convinced me that it can be very useful when dealing with massive amounts of polled or collected data.

Book Reading 52 – Living With Complexity

Chapter 3 – How Simple Things Can Complicate Our Mind
Summary
Norman talks about how the numerous simple designs for the same function can easily confuse our minds.  A prominent example is the door knob or a car door lock.  Universal standards do not exist for how to design these devices, so there are many designs that exist to accomplish the task of these objects.  Each new design we encounter required us to rethink how to do the same general action with the new tool.  One way design has helped this problem is using visual cues to give hints to people on how to use the specific design.

Discussion
Door knobs seem to come up in a lot of Norman’s books.  But, it is always such a great example for so many different scenarios.  The same goes for door locks.  I am sure everyone has been confused about how to open the door from the inside of a foreign at some point in time.  Or maybe you have had to explain your own car to a friend.  It doesn’t take long to figure these things out, but it surely would help if all of these devices were a little more similar among themselves.

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Chapter 4 – Social Signifiers
Summary
Social signifiers can play a large role in simplifying the world around us.  One example that was given was how salt and pepper shakers are usually fairly simple to tell apart even with all the different designs that exist.  Norman states how we all tend to was the people around us as we try to blend in.  Following what other do helps us in making more sense of the complex world we live in.

Discussion
Quite often, I will purposely choose to not go first for performing some unfamiliar task.  Instead, I will watch the others perform it first, and then emulate what they do, or sometimes improve upon their methods.  This is nothing new though since many people tend to do this very thing.  Also, if salt and pepper shakers can be easily recognizable even with all of their diverse designs, why can’t the same be said for door knobs?

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Paper Reading 24 – The Why UI: Using Goal Networks to Improve User Interfaces

The initial view of when the user enters their goal.

Comments
Patrick Frith
Steven Hennessy

Reference Information
The Why UI: Using Goal Networks to Improve User Interfaces
 - Dustin A. Smith and Henry Lieberman
 - IUI 2010, Hong Kong, China

Summary
This paper dealt with a program called ToDoGo.  The authors explained how users often have goals they want to accomplish and that software should be tailored to helps users meet these goals.  They explained an online system where users declare their goals, and then post updates as to whether or not they met their goals and how they met them.  They took this format and implanted it into the ToDoGo system.  In their demonstration for how it works, they streamlined the process a little more than recognizing trends from a website.

Suggested tasks pertaining to the goal.

In the ToDoGo system, the user specifies what their goal is and a few attributes pertaining to it.  Once it is added, the program recognizes from its database related steps required to meet this goal and notifies the user about them.  If the user selects these goals, the program will further guide them in completing these sub-goals leading up to the main goal.  The designers’ main goal was to demonstrate how this type of application approach can be helpful in improving the user experience as a whole.

ToDoGo gives directions to aid users in completing their goal.

Discussion
I think the authors brought up a great point.  When presented with a program, it can sometimes be a little complex and overwhelming at first.  There are manuals and tutorials to help with this, but sometimes you just want to complete a simple task without the need to familiarize yourself with the entire program.  If the user could type in a goal and have the program give instruction on how to complete their goal, this would be amazing.  I love this idea, but it seems fairly high level and abstract to actually implement.  The work presented in this paper, however, has me optimistic that this can become a reality someday.

Why We Make Mistakes

Reference
Why We Make Mistakes
- Joe Hallinan

Summary
Hallinan discussed thoroughly the many reasons for why humans make mistakes.  Inexperience with subject matter can cause people to miss things.  The ones who are more experienced will be more sensitive to minute changes and will therefore be able to pick up on more.  Another problem is that humans connect information to meaning.  We need to for distinct enough meanings to things otherwise we can expect to forget it at some point.  Our tendencies to make snap judgments also causes many problems for us.  We think we know the whole picture when, in fact, we usually do not at the blink of an eye.

While being familiar with something can be a great asset, we can skip over certain details because we assume they will be there.  This is a common source for foolish errors and missing seemingly obvious details.  One more important source of mistakes the lack of constraint that we put on ourselves.  He explains how constraints drastically deplete the probability for error by removing sources for common errors.  Many don’t learn from their mistakes, because they did not properly find the source of it.  Similarly, removing complexity and adding constraints can greatly improve the effectiveness of a design.

One of the main points Hallinan wanted the reader to leave with was to think small.  It is the tiniest things that can make the largest impact on a person’s behavior.  He also added that attitude has a large effect on many things, like how we view life.  We need to keep the right things in perspective if we ever expect to decrease our rate of making mistakes.

Discussion
This book was a great discussion on the numerous causes of mistakes.  I know there were quite a few that I am guilty of doing myself.  One of the main ones is overlooking obvious things because I am too tied up in thinking I know everything in a certain subject.  As soon as you make mistakes in a situation like this, you immediately wonder how something so simple could have been missed.  Now that kind of stuff makes  a little more sense than it did before.  Something I will try to keep in mind is thinking small.  I think as a whole, humans like to overcomplicate things.  When something seems nearly impossible, we’re most likely looking at it the wrong way.  By breaking things down and thinking in the simplest terms, this can certainly help in resolving this issue.

Book Reading 51 – Living With Complexity

Chapter 1 – Why Is Complexity Necessary?
Summary
Norman explains the difference between a design being complex and a design being complicated.  He states that complex things exist because our lives are very complex.  There is no getting around the complex design of a jet cockpit control panel because the complexity of the technology requires it.  Good design can help alleviate how complicated the control panel is to individuals trained to use it.  Poor design on the other hand can make simple and complex things more complicated and overwhelming than they have to be.

Discussion
As common sense as some of this sounds, there are too many examples of bad design for this to be completely trivial.  If the design is created correctly, something as complex as video encoding software can be made simple to use.  But something as simple as a door can be complicated to use when the design is poorly executed.

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Chapter 2 – Simplicity is in the Mind
Summary
Norman discusses the importance of the conceptual model.  At a glance, complex things can be difficult to manage.  But with a proper conceptual design,  a deeper understanding of the complexities of the situation can help make an intuitive design that alleviates the chance of it being complicated.  Over simplification can be detrimental just as an overabundance of features can as well.  The trick is to manage complexity with good design that will then yield better usability.

Discussion
The first thing I like to do before starting a program is to think for awhile and come up with a plan for how to best arrange and tackle the problem.  This usually entails drawing sketches and diagrams too.  Many people probably go about this process in the same way, and this is because having a conceptual model for a design is so important.  In the earlier days of programming, a lot of us probably just start writing code and came up with ideas on the fly.  The downside to this the inevitable roadblocks that will occur from different parts not fitting together properly.  This wastes time and can generate unnecessary complications in order to make quick fixes for the problems.

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Paper Reading 23 – Automatic Generation of Research Trails in Web History

Comments
Patrick Frith
Paola Garza

Reference Information
Automatic Generation of Research Trails in Web History
 - Elin Rønby Pedersen, Karl Gyllstrom, Shengyin Gu, and Peter Jin Hong
 - IUI 2010, Hong Kong, China

Summary
Research trails are an attempt at tracking web activity more robustly than simply using bookmarks or view browsing history.  The designers noted how web research behavior is very different from more conventional means of research like in a library.  Users will start at a certain site with sometime a vague understanding of what they are exactly looking for.  Over the course of exploring pages, their path they took can be quite varied.  If they decide to take a break from this activity, there is no effective tool right now to make getting back into the research a simple task.  Users tend to forget where they were, and will waste time trying to find their place.

The research trails concept eliminates this problem by representing browsing history as a path of connected sites.  As the user is browsing, the algorithms the designers use pay attention to the content and decipher when one research path ends and when a new one begins.  Once finished exploring a research avenue, the user can reference their path and easily see where they started and specifically how and when they reached their final destination.  The authors noted in their user study the challenge of how to handle similar research trails.  A possible solution would be to merge similar trails together and open up the similarity threshold within the algorithm.

Google as a giant robot.

The designers were satisfied with the trailing methods robust ability to recognize gradual shifts and research direction and to handle those properly.  In order to make the product more ideal, they would like to add pertinent snapshots to various points along the user’s trail.  Another important feature addition would be allowing the user to tweak the trails by changing adjusting its figures and moving items around.  They noted how these features are important in the final product, but they were not necessary in order to demonstrate the research trails concept.

Discussion
This was a very fascinating and extremely useful concept they explained in this paper.  I have a feeling everyone has gone on some extreme Wikipedia tangent before.  You start by looking at one page and then you see three, four, or maybe more links you would like to investigate.  So you  open new tabs or windows for those.  And then each one of those can spawn multiple new topics to investigate, and so on.  Before you know it, you have filled up an entire afternoon of exploring.  This can be entertaining and educational, but what if you want to take a break or you have other important tasks to accomplish that day?  Bookmarking all of those windows or tabs for later use is an option, but what are the chances you will remember what in the world you were doing and where to start?

Honestly, you’ll probably give up or miss a major avenue of research.  Either that, or you will waste a great deal of time researching on where you left off in your research.  Yes, a random Wikipedia binge is often not extremely important, but it definitely could be.  This is exactly the kind of situation research trails are made for.  The program would be tracking your tendencies the entire time, so you could easily come back to exactly where you left off.  It would also make is easy to back track in case you wanted to at yet another tangent to the research.  On top of this, the algorithm is also designed to recognize subtle changes in research paths.  So, it should be able to recognize separate research tangents if they are distinct enough.  This would further the simplicity of picking up all of the various research trails if you need to set them aside for awhile.

In case it is not obvious, I am very enthusiastic about the idea of research trails.  If it is not already in use, I would imagine it is getting close to becoming available for people to try out.  Since two people from Google worked on this project, I would be willing to bet this will be yet another interesting innovation that will simply appear one day without warning just like the web snapshots within search results did.

Book Reading 50 – Why We Make Mistakes

Chapter 12 – We Don’t Constrain Ourselves
Summary
The importance of constraints was discussed in this chapter.  Constraints drastically deplete the probability for error by removing sources for common errors.  Many don’t learn from their mistakes, because they did not properly find the source of it.  Hallinan also adds how removing complexity and adding constraints can greatly improve designs.

Discussion
This chapter reminded me a little of The Design of Everyday Things.  This was a broader discussion though.  The discussion about medical errors was kind of startling.  I know it was there to make his point clear, but hearing things like that can make you worry about having any surgery done.

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Chapter 13 – The Grass Does Look Greener
Summary
People tend to have inaccurate views on things when they don’t have the full picture.  Hallinan quotes someone as saying, “we tend to zero in on things that are easily observed and give too much attention to those.”  This tends to be the main source for misjudgments.  Learning to concentrate more on the big picture by taking in as many details as possible can solve this.

Discussion
It was interesting hear about the pole regarding living locations.  California does seem like a great place to live when you concentrate on the weather.  However, there is a lot of congestion there and finding the right place to live is extremely important.  I’m honestly just fine living in the northeast somewhere.

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Conclusion
Summary
A major point Hallinan makes is to think small.  It is the tiniest things that can make the largest impact on a person’s behavior.  He also added that attitude has a large effect on many things, like how we view life.  While this may be simple, he explains that many people forget this.  The last message he gives is how our living location is not what makes us happy, but how we use our time.

Discussion
The last part about how we use our time seems like a huge concept to me.  It’s not complicated, but it’s just so important.  A lame bar is only a lame bar if you decide to do nothing about it.  For me, the people you are with define the level of enjoyment about a place.  So just as Hallinan explained, it is definitely not the location you are in.  It’s the way you decide to spend your time that matters the most and defines your life.

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Media Equation

Reference
Media Equation
- Part 1: Clifford Nass and Youngme Moon
- Part 2: Clifford Nass, Jonathon Steuer, and Ellen R. Tauber
- Part 3: Clifford Nass, Youngme Moon, BJ Fogg, Byron Reeves, and Chris Dryer

Summary
The first of these selections explained how humans tend to view the computer as more of a social entity than a machine.  Humans tend to personify the computer and give it human-like traits.  Even though people in a study claimed that treating computers as humans should not be done, this did not stop them from doing so.  In general, the readings showed how computers are viewed as social entities.  This was shown very clearly in the experiment  in problem solving where a person was paired up with a computer.  The computer was either dominant or submissive, and in each situation the person treated it as another human being.  They knew and acknowledged it was just a computer, but they reacted to it as if it were a person with those exact same traits.

Discussion
These readings started to remind me of the subject matter covered in “On Computers” towards the beginning of the semester.  At the beginning of the semester though, we didn’t have the knowledge that we have now.  The concepts presented in “On Computers” made sense, but I feel like the Media Equation readings expand on that a lot more and built on all that we have been learning and covering throughout the semester.  The most important concept for me that I will take away from this class is the necessity to think like the user and keeping the user in mind in the design process of any product or service.  This might seem like common sense, but I have seen enough examples to show that this common sense is not always followed.  The Media Equation readings show that people do treat and view computers as other humans.  Since this is true, it would only make sense that they would like some sort of human elements present in their interaction with them.  If this can be implemented more into the human-computer interaction, I would think this would continue to improve the overall user experience.

Paper Reading 22 – Vocabulary Navigation Made Easier

Comments
Paola Garza
Patrick Frith

Reference Information
Vocabulary Navigation Made Easier
 - Sonya Nikolova, Xiaojuan Ma, Marilyn Tremaine, and Perry Cook
 - IUI 2010, Hong Kong, China

The arrangement of words using the LG vocabulary style.

Summary
Finding particular vocabulary words can be quite difficult.  This is especially true when the selection is increases into the hundreds.  The authors of this paper acknowledge this issue, and they set out to find a solution.  People with lexical impairments were a main focus of theirs.  They ended up testing 16 people, 7 of which were female.  In this test, they asked the participants to fill in phrases uses two different sets of vocabulary words.  One was a more traditional format called LG vocabulary, whereas the other was created by the authors called ViVA vocabulary.

The main difference is that the ViVA format is created to reflect more of how the particular user’s mind groups and sorts vocabulary words and their relations.  As they thought it would, there was a significant decrease in the time needed to navigate to the correct vocabulary words using the ViVA vocabulary format.  While the test subjects did not have any lexical impairment, the designers believe that the improvement they saw with the participants would only be amplified when the system is used by people who do have lexical impairments.

The arrangement of words using their ViVA vocabulary style.

Discussion
This seems like a pretty interesting idea.  It also seems like something that could help people remember words when they simply can’t think of the specific word they are looking for.  But like the authors said, this would be a great tool for foreign language speakers who are not native to this country.  Sifting through a translation book can be extremely cumbersome, but having a system like this in a portable device could do wonders to improve upon that kind of situation.  The last few papers have been pretty great ideas, and this one is no different.

Book Reading 49 – Why We Make Mistakes

Chapter 10 – We All Think We’re Above Average
Summary
In general, people feel they are above average and this overestimate causes them to make mistakes.  A major downside to this is that companies can and will take advantage of this mindset to net them a profit.  Due to lack of feedback though, most people never change their thoughts on the matter.  As tasks get more difficult, overconfidence also increases.

Discussion
I can definitely see how companies can easily take advantage of this above-average notion that people tend to have.  Any time an ad on TV mentions that someone deserves a specific product, this is just catering to people wanting to think they are above average.  I have also experienced a boost in confidence when faced with a daunting task.  I think this can sometimes be a good thing, but it can definitely hurt you as well.

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Chapter 11 – We’d Rather Wing It
Summary
Hallinan explains the differences between novices and experts.  The main difference he points out is the level of commitment being an expert requires.  To become an expert, intense practice is required to implant memory of many different motors functions and actions pertaining to the subject.  There needs to be a great deal of built-in knowledge ready to be accessed on the fly.  Many average people would like to think they are experts, but all they are doing is simple winging it, as the title would suggest.  Instructions are usually ignored and people will just try and figure it out on their own.

Discussion
I’m definitely guilty of abandoning instructions, but it is usually to try and discover something on my own if it seems plausible.  If not, I have no issues following an instruction manual.  This is one of the best ways to learn how to do something.  Then you can build off of this method and improve it.  Honestly, I would never consider myself a true expert in anything because I don’t put forth the effort to practice any crafts.  I might know a decent amount of knowledge, but I always feel like I am constantly in a state of learning for a lot of different interests of mine.

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Book Reading 48 – Media Equation

Part 1 – Machines and Mindlessness: Social Responses to Computers
Summary
This selection dealt with how humans view the computer as more of a social entity than a machine.  Some tests were performed in order to demonstrate this concept.  They showed that humans personify computers with ethnicity and gender, as well as associating aggressiveness to computers.  The most interesting part about this test was how everyone agreed that computers should not be treated as another human being.

Discussion
How often have you heard, seen, or maybe even yourself become infuriated with a computer?  Maybe even pounded on your keyboard out of rampant frustration?  It’s obviously not a good idea since it can needlessly break something, but it is still a natural response when something we are doing makes us angry on a computer.  The computer has nothing to do with it, yet it still gets the brunt of our anger in these situations.

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Part 2 – Computers are Social Actors
Summary
It was shown how easily responses from social norms that people apply to computers can be reproduced during their interaction with them.  Studies were done to show the power of primitive cues such as gender and voice when pertaining to computers in the social realm.  The end result showed how largely social the human-computer relationship really is.

Discussion
This might not be the case with everyone, but I view my computer as a major part of who I am.  It’s definitely more than a machine to me.  And truly, a large part of my social interactions take place through the computer with friends.  I have seen a lot of examples of how this selection can be applied as a whole.

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Part 3 – Can Computer Personalities Be Human Personalities?
Summary
A study was presented here that showed how people respond socially to a computer appearing to have a personality.  The study involving problem solving with another human being had two main computers with one being dominant and one being submissive.  The dominant computer always went first, used strong language, and expressed higher confidence.  The submissive computer always went second, asked a lot of questions, and had a lower confidence.  The result showed people recognized the personalities of the computers and that they reacted to the personality types as if the computers were another person in an actual social situation.

Discussion
If people pick up on personality and treat computers as people naturally, I would imagine it would be a good idea to cater to this habit.  If program added a little character to their design, this might make new designs more acceptable to new users.  This might not exactly be the case, but it would be an interesting way to design software.  Some computer games I have played have showed character before and it really can add to the experience and enjoyment of use of the product.

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Paper Reading 21 – Supporting Exploratory Information Seeking by Epistemology-based Social Search

An example entry in the system.

Comments
Paola Garza
Patrick Frith

Reference Information
Supporting Exploratory Information Seeking by Epistemology-based Social Search
 - Yuqing Mao, Haifeng Shen, and Chengzheng Sun
 - IUI 2010, Hong Kong, China

Summary
This paper deals with solving the issues of effective exploratory information seeking (EIS).  EIS refers to searches where users are searching for specific information on a subject or topic.  Initially, these users tend to not have all the information they need to yield the best search results.  Suggesting keywords like Google uses is one method of improving this problem.  But, they proposed to use a social search approach to help expand on past searches.

With their system called “Baijia,” users can perform a search and then attach applicable sites to the search query they found in their search.  This helps future users by being able to not only see a possible search query similar to theirs, but they can also see what kind of results this query might yield.  The key difference they point out between their approach and similar ones is they allow other to refine these EIS social searches.  If a certain query is close or does not quite yield the results someone wants, this other person can also expand and add to the stored query.  Allowing these feature further expand on the effective of the original query, and this will also help future people improve their searching even more than before.

This is how the entry appears from new searches.

Compared to other options available, the authors found their implementation to be far superior to conventional search engines in supporting EIS needs.  They were able to find the desired information quicker and more efficiently.  The added ability to alter the social search entries also helped improve their solution to EIS.  They plan to conduct user studies to further evaluate their approach and collect information about the application’s interface.

Discussion
I tend to have fairly successful searches when I am looking for information using Google.  However, I can certainly see how this could help a great deal in improving time spend searching for certain types of information.  For items that are extremely difficult to find, it would help a lot to have groundwork laid out by people who might have conducted the same search in the past.  I would definitely like to see the results of their testing and see how practical this approach is over a broad selection of searches.  If it’s still very successful, I’d love to try their application out at some point.

Book Reading 47 – Why We Make Mistakes

Chapter 8 – We Like Things Tidy
Summary
This chapter dealt with misinformation as created by the human mind.  The title refers to details being omitted so it is easier to recall stories and information.  The main downside of this is exaggeration and our own interpretations take the place of fact in some cases.  A good example of this is writing a letter of recommendation.  What this letter contains might not be fictional, but exaggeration and fact adjustment may happen.  In a test, many people could not accurately recall what they wrote in these.

Discussion
I am pretty sure I exaggerate quite a bit when recommending someone.  But by quite a bit, I mean it’s still modest.  I don’t make up stories about someone, but I am fairly certain I have exaggerated for their sake.  I don’t feel this is necessarily wrong though.  It can happen on the fly, and usually this is done so others who don’t know the person can feel a level of excitement about them that is equivalent to that of someone who has known them for years.

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Chapter 9 – Men Shoot First
Summary
This chapter discussed heavily the various differences between men and women.  Both sexes handle the same situations very differently.  The overall consensus seems to be that men possess a higher level of confidence on themselves than women do of themselves.  Men seem to have a stronger need of exploration than women.

Discussion
This was a really cool chapter.  It was interesting to hear a more technical and in depth discussion about the differences between men and women.  It certainly wasn’t saying men are better than women.  But the whole confidence thing makes sense.  In the situation of not asking for directions, it’s not solely based on ego.  Men simply don’t believe they are lost, or don’t want to.  I usually want to figure things out for myself instead of reading directions.  I know when to throw in the towel, but now this makes sense.  I probably just believe I know what I am doing.  I might not, but my confidence in learning it by doing is high enough that I like giving it a try.

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Things That Make Us Smart

Reference
Things That Make Us Smart
- Donald A. Norman

Summary
Norman stresses technology needing to be more human-centered.  We did not have enough foresight to design technology with humans more in mind.  Because of this, it does not cater to the needs of humans as much as it should.  He explains that we can still change this and focus it properly.  Going along with this is also the method in which we learn material.  He states that the standard lecture way of teaching information is not as engaging and therefore not as effective as it could be.  He brings up adventure games as being a good example of how keeping people active and involved can help them learn information for effectively.

The way we represent information can have a huge impact on how we remember and interact with it.  Norman discusses how we need to keep our representations as self-explanatory as possible so they can be more helpful in expanding our knowledge.  And of course, he reminds us that designs need to be catered to the person who will be using them.  If the user is experiencing all of the deficits of the technology but none of the benefits, then there is something terrible wrong with the overall design execution.

Discussion
Norman presented an interesting way to view how we learn information in this book.  Briefly in the past learning styles have been touched upon, but I never looked at learning the way he did in this book.  But after hearing him discuss it, the more engaging a class is the easier it is to learn the information is retain it later on.  I tend to thrive in discussion heavy classes, because it keeps my mind more active than merely listening to the professor and copying down notes.  I try to take as little notes as I possibly can so I can hear as much of what the professor is saying as I can.  If I just have my head down in my notebook, whatever I am writing is largely meaningless to me.  Also, user-centered design is a massive take away message from this class, and I don’t think I will be forgetting it anytime soon.

Paper Reading 20 – A Multimodal Labeling Interface for Wearable Computing

Comments
Paola Garza
Patrick Frith

Reference Information
A Multimodal Labeling Interface for Wearable Computing
 - Shanqing Li and Yunde Jia
 - IUI 2010, Hong Kong, China

The different parts that make up the labeling system.

Summary
A different way of labeling items and features in the field was discussed.  The current way of performing these tasks is with a keyboard and mouse.  The mouse is used to circle an area or object and the keyboard can easily be used to type in the label.  However, this can be cumbersome and very inconvenient for many environments.  The authors proposed a new way to achieve these tasks with a wearable computer.

The device is comprised of the different elements outlined in the picture to the right.  The person needs to wear a computer that is in a backpack of sorts.  Then they also have a camera on their head and a Bluetooth microphone.  In order to label an object, the person simply reaches out their finger and encircles what they would like to label.  The camera picks up on this and registers encircled object.  Then the microphone is used to label the object through speech recognition.  Encircling objects with a finger was found to be much quicker than with a mouse and could be done in a fraction of the time.  Their speech recognition was also found to be 98% accurate in labeling properly.  Overall, their system was extremely successful in the applicable environments.

The labeling system in action.

Discussion
This idea was pretty interesting.  I had never previously thought about situations that would need a device like this.  But now I can certainly see where it could be useful.  If these labeling actions are needed, using a portable keyboard and mouse seem extremely inconvenient.  It just makes a lot more sense to have a system where you can simply gesture around an area and speak the name, and then move on to the next item.  I don’t really have much else to say about this.  This idea seems very useful for its environment and it was a fantastic solution to the problem they presented.

Book Reading 46 – Why We Make Mistakes

Chapter 6 – We’re in the Wrong Frame of Mind
Summary
Manipulating people psychologically is apparently not that difficult to do.  It is also quite common as the author explains.  Part of this has to do with a person’s state of mind, such as French music boosting the sales of French wine and German music lowering them.  Another example is a store with many items on sale could bring in a large crowd.  Even if the other items in the store might be higher than other places, people enjoy the prospect of a sale too much to pay attention to this.

Discussion
This is another area that seems to be plagued by preconceptions and bias.  I definitely look out for sales, but I don’t know if I would be as vulnerable as to flock to a store that had them and then not pay attention to what other items are priced as.  I do believe this happens though.  Convincing people that they are getting a great deal tends to could their judgment on other things.

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Chapter 7 – We Skim
Summary
Skimming is a handy tool, but Hallinan points out what its major problems are.  When we become familiar with something, we feel as though we can skim over it because we know what the activity or action is all about.  However, this is when small errors can get overlooked.  We assume things are as they should be since we assume we know what we are doing.  We might, but this is when foolish errors can be made.

Discussion
Skimming for reading can be quite handy.  But, important details can still be missed.  One interesting situation that I have found myself in a few times happens whenever I need to move my computer.  Sometimes, it just won’t turn on after I have everything hooked up.  One thought is that something extremely technical has broken.  Then I look at the back of the tower and realize the power cable isn’t plugged in.  This doesn’t happen to me all the time, but probably a 3 or 4 times over the years.  I have gotten better at checking for this, but sometimes I’m in a rush with something I have done quite a bit.  This is when such a minor detail gets overlooked.

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Book Reading 45 – Things That Make Us Smart

Chapter 3 – The Power of Representation
Summary
Representation can be used to make hard tasks easier.  By doing so, Norman explains this can make accessing knowledge and information more streamlined.  The key in these situations is to select the most appropriate way to represent the data.  The more self-explanatory the representation is, the more helpful it is at expanding knowledge.

Discussion
The map representations were an interesting idea to demonstrate this concept.  Shading is effective, and people normally know what it means.  However, the legend needs to be constantly referred back to until the viewer has it memorized.  Using the other representation, minus the shading, the overall size of the state clearly gets the point of the diagram across.  With no need for a legend, this becomes a very effective means of representation.  This chapter also seems to tie in with some of his other books and catering to humans with better visual design choices.

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Chapter 4 – Fitting the Artifact to the Person
Summary
This reading covered very similar information present in previous reading in other Norman books.  He explained how artifacts or devices need to be catered to the person who will be using them.  He brought up the example of the voice-messaging systems.  His main point was that when the users experience all the deficits of technology but none of the benefits, there is something seriously wrong.  This kind of situation usually leads to the demise of this particular technology.

Discussion
Quite often, I have seen a particular program morph into an unwanted piece of garbage.  And usually this program starts out as something fantastic.  One example is antivirus software.  One in particular started out very low on resource consumption and was completely nonintrusive.  However, as time went on the company absorbed other companies and continued to add features they figure their users wanted.  All this did was make the software bloated and turned it completely away from the reason most users started using it in the first place.  I had had enough of dealing with the deficits, and this caused me to switch to a different provider.

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Final Project Proposal

After discussing the final project as a group, we have decided to tackle our ideas for Project 2.  While Project 3 might be an interesting idea as well, making the TA Assistant application seems far more plausible.  We also started to really enjoy the ideas we were coming up with Project 2.  Seeing as none of us really have experience with this kind of application design or the devices involved, we might have to be modest in what we can expect to accomplish.  This is not to say we won’t try to include all the features we want.  But, we will most likely break down the design and prioritize the requirements.  This way we can always have some sort of working product at any given time.  Going about it this way will also help if we simply can’t find the time to implement everything we want.  Our goal will be to complete as much as possible, but at the same time we plan to make a realistic goal for ourselves and then go from there.  We look forward to discussing the plans together for this final project and striving to accomplish as much as we can.

Coming of Age in Samoa

Reference
Coming of Age in Samoa
- Margaret Mead

Summary
Over the course of this book Mead examines and explains the culture of the Samoan people.  But mainly, she focuses on the lives of the Samoan female progressing from child to adolescent to adult.  This included the method of education of the children, the way their household operates, the way the children interact with each and how this changes over time, and how the girls role in her community changes.  As the girls began to his puberty, she even studied their sex relations and reproductive system habits.  She also collected immense amounts of data to back up and explain all of her qualitative findings that she writes about.

Her main goal was to try and use the Samoan female as a comparison to how adolescents behave in Western cultures.  The level of rebellion and troublesome natures of many children of that age in the United States for instance had many people worried, so she wanted to see if there was an underlying reason for why this was.  What she found was that even when the Samoan culture had some Western influences and the children were given some more choices in education and job options besides the traditional options, their core values and traditions remained intact.

This led her to an interesting conclusion.  The core of the problem could be choice and the adolescents’ inability to make proper choices on their own.  She claims that society is not the source of the problem generating the issues of the adolescent.  Instead, adolescents have not been taught how to make choices within the society.  There is too much stress on choosing the correct choice instead of teaching everyone how to make their own choices for themselves.  This is causing the stress and the issues she set out to solve in the first place.

Discussion
I feel that Mead is absolutely correct.  I think it would also be safe to say this is still the case today and not much if anything has been done to fix this issue.  To me, the key is discovering how to think for yourself.  The second you stop caring so much about what others will think of you and catering to their expectations and begin making decisions for yourself is the beginning of what Mead was pointing out towards the end of the book.  Yes, the way she conducted her ethnography was interesting and extremely in depth, but the main take away message for me was when she discovered a possible explanation for the adolescent issue.  Unfortunately, I don’t think it’s realistic for adolescents to completely let go of the social expectations of pleasing others and being accepted.  The way it is not is the natural order of things, and this realization will just need to come on its own whenever people are ready for it.

Ethnography Results – Week 8

This week only brought one interesting story, but it is a good closer for this study and ties into one of the points I’d like to bring up in the report for this study.

Commenting and Posting
Nothing to note here.

The Atheism Category
While I have written about people explaining how they became atheists on reddit, this situation is slightly different.  It is mainly different because of how young the person is who spoke out to the atheism followers.  He is only 14.

He explained that he came from a Christian family and the only other atheist he knew in his entire family was his uncle.  Unfortunately, his uncle was constantly chastised by his grandparents for this and this didn’t exactly create a welcoming environment for him when he decided to change his beliefs.  When he started doubting his beliefs and their validity, he began to read Ray Bradbury and Philip K. Dick quite a bit.  They ended up helping him to come to terms with becoming an atheist and breaking off from his upbringing.  However, he realized that he couldn’t go to his grandparents or his parents for that matter to talk about the changes he was going through.  He also said the entire area he was in was heavily Christian so he didn’t feel like any of his friends could help him in this matter either.  But that’s when he remembered about the atheism subreddit.  He wrapped up his post by saying that he found a home with the atheism community there and he no longer felt alone in dealing with his issues.  He praised reddit and its members for being so friendly and helpful in his time of need.

The last part he mentioned about reddit being a helpful community is actually on of the main points I got out of this entire study.  There are not many places I can think of where someone could seek help like this guy did and actually receive it without any smarmy comments or people just looking to rip into one another.  This is not always the case in places like other forums and such, but I think anyone would be hard pressed in finding a virtual community as community-like as a real community in a neighborhood as reddit is with its users.  This is of course just based on my experience with the atheism category users, but it just feels like an entirely different crowd on reddit.

Wrap-up
Overall, this has been a very entertaining and informative study.  To be honest, I wasn’t sure what I was going to get out of this study at first.  I knew reddit was new and foreign so it would be interesting in that regard.  But I had no idea the kind of perspective I would gain from it over the course of these 8 weeks.  I must say that I am thoroughly impressed with the community atmosphere in the atheism subreddit.  Never once did I see someone call out for help and peace of mind and not have someone answer their call.  As a side note for myself, I also saw the main issues fueling the hostility between Christians and atheists.  I had seen some of this before, but hearing some of the testimonials opened my eyes even more than they were before.  I really enjoyed everything I got out of this study and all of the knowledge I gained from it.

Paper Reading 19 – A $3 Gesture Recognizer – Simple Gesture Recognition for Devices Equipped with 3D Acceleration Sensors

Comments
Patrick Frith
Paola Garza

Reference Information
A $3 Gesture Recognizer – Simple Gesture Recognition for Devices Equipped with 3D Acceleration Sensors
 - Sven Kratz and Michael Rohs
 - IUI 2010, Hong Kong, China

Summary
The $3 Gesture Recognizer is targeted at providing an easy to use and easy to implement gesture recognizer to be used in prototyping environments.  Essentially, for designing gesture-based applications, this device could be used as an easy effective alternative to more expensive and complex solutions.  This device is also based on simple trigonometric and geometric calculations, so no external frameworks or toolkits are needed in order to use it.

A main issue with other gesture recognition devices is that they are mostly based on a 2-D landscape.  If a gesture cannot be mapped to a 2-D plain, then it cannot be included in the device’s gesture subset.  The designers set out to expand on the work of Wobbrock et al by implementing a 3-D version of their device.  They also point out how their work is similar to how Nintendo’s WiiMote functions and recognizes gestures, and they end up using the WiiMote to capture gestures.

Their user study involved 12 participants performing each gesture in the diagram of the subset 15 times.  On average, their implementation of gesture recognition resulted in an 80% recognition rate.  In the figure included, (b) had the highest recognition rate, while (j) caused the most trouble for users.  They explain this might be due to the ambiguity of the motion (j) requires and how wide open to interpretation that is to the user.  Users also found (h) and (i) the most uncomfortable to perform.

Overall, they only had an 8% false positive rate.  Although, they did point out some weaknesses.  Each gesture must be explicitly started and stopped by the user.  The recognizer is unable to pick up on gestures in the middle of other motions.  They also are only able to store so many gestures in the subset.  If the subset becomes too large, false positives rise and there is too much overhead to calculate the recognition.  However, the test was a success, and they were able to produce an alternative to more advanced recognition approaches that is cheaper and more convenient to use.

Discussion
Gesture-based applications have always been fun to use.  I’ve only really used the Wii myself, but the gesture recognition in devices like that is intriguing.  I never put much though into the science behind this recognition until reading this paper though.  It seems like they have a pretty useful idea they are developing.  While most of my ideas point to uses in gaming, this technology could be used for many different things.  One of these could surgeon training or some other training that requires great motor skills and coordination.

But, they have already stated how they have a limited subset of gestures.  I imagine something like a surgeon trainer would require extremely accurate gesture recognition techniques.  I am sure the $3 Gesture Recognizer could be up to the task.  They would just need to improve its technique so it could calculate far more gestures than it currently can.  I look forward to seeing where gesture-based technologies go in the near and far future.

Book Reading 44 – Why We Make Mistakes

Chapter 4 – We Wear Rose Colored Glasses
Summary
This chapter is referencing the idea how people tend to look at themselves in a more positive light than what the reality of the situation might be.  When asked to recall grades, most people remembered getting A’s, even though this was not always true.  Also, people don’t tend to acknowledge the presence of a bias even though this happens far more often than not.

Discussion
I’d like to think I am pretty honest about myself, but I am sure I have been guilty of misrepresenting myself in the past.  For me though, I find it humorous whenever I make a mistake.  This is especially true when I’m with friends and I say something terribly stupid.  I’m usually the first one to notice it, or at least the first one to point it out if it’s truly ridiculous.

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Chapter 5 – We Can Walk and Chew Gum - but Not Much Else
Summary
This chapter discusses how true multitasking is a myth for the human mind.  Multicore CPU’s are one of the devices that can truly multitask, but humans cannot.  We can only switch between tasks very quickly to give the illusion of multitasking.  But in all reality, we are straining our concentration over too many things, and work quality suffers as well as the rate of forgetfulness increasing with the more tasks we try to handle.

Discussion
Using my computer is the only time I actually feel like I am multitasking.  I am not necessarily an easily distracted person, but I don’t fare well when I need to do multiple things at once without the aid of a computer.  When I am texting, I will usually tell a friend to hold on so I don’t miss what they are saying.  If I try to listen to them, not only will I not get everything they are saying, but I might make a mistake with my text message.  So, I always choose to do one or the other so I don’t blow off a conversation.

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Book Reading 43 – Things That Make Us Smart

Chapter 1 – A Human-Centered Technology
Summary
Norman argues that technology is not human-centered enough.  Technology simply happened and was not planned to happen as it did.  Therefore, it was not possible to perfectly tailor is to the needs of humans.  He explains that if we want technology to truly help us, we need to begin designing it specifically with humans in mind and have it cater to our needs.

Discussion
What Norman was saying made sense.  Now that we are aware of this issue, maybe there is something we can do about it.  However, this might difficult since technology is constantly mutating entity.  Sometimes people don’t know what they until it’s actually available.  It seems like it would be difficult to control technology to the extent that Normal is recommending.  It could be worth a shot.

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Chapter 2 – Experiencing the World
Summary
The main topic of discussion is various ways of learning.  Norman explains the difference between standard lecture-type learning and more informal learning.  One example was how action games are successful in keeping the attention of the player and constantly engaging them in activity.  This is an effective way of learning.  Formal methods of learning in the classroom are not always very effective, so more informal methods are pointed out and recommended.

Discussion
I can definitely vouch for good computer games and how well they can keep your attention.  Yes, some are mindless.  But others keep me engrossed because of how they make me think differently and are rewarding.  There is a reason why some games can keep someone’s attention for many hours at a time.  It’s probably not plausible to turn a classroom into an action game, but taking tips from games for how to improve the environment and engage students more could help a lot with the problem Norman was pointing out.

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Emotional Design

Reference
Emotional Design
- Donald A. Norman

Summary
One of the first main points of the book was that attractive things work better.  This is not by some magic, but because of how attractive design makes people feel.  When someone sees an aesthetically pleasing device (be it a car, blender, or ATM machine), this makes them feel happy and puts them in a better mood.  Due to how chemistry works in the brain, being happy makes it easier for people to think and to think more creatively.  This then opens up their mind more to figure out a new device.  Consequently, the attractive device will appear to work better because more people are able to figure it out from their improved mood they are in.

Similarly to all of this, emotion plays a large part in a company forming a successful self-image.  If users are satisfied with a product, they will remember this and form memories of their activities with it.  Excellent customer service also attributes to this concept.  It is these images the users have formed in their mind that makes them remember a brand name and want to use it again in the future.

Norman also explained the three levels of design.  The first is visceral, which deals with the physical aspect of a product.  This tied into the discussion about attractive design and making products and interfaces look pleasing to the eye and not visually offensive.  The next is behavioral, which deals with how the product actually functions.  The look is important, but this means nothing if the product doesn’t have great functionality.  The last aspect he mentions is reflective, which is how the user remembers their experience with the product.  This experience can make or break repeat customers.  Norman also added how letting someone with a clear vision take the reins of the design process is the best way to be successful in all aspects of the design.  This might come with financial risk, but could also be the difference between a good product and a fantastic product.

Discussion
We only read a small portion of this book, so I might not have a lot to day about it.  I did enjoy how this reading seemed to go more in depth into the meaning behind the design of a product or interface than The Design of Everyday Things did.  Easily the most valuable piece of knowledge I took away from this book is what Norman said about attractive things working better.  I had never previously thought about the impact of attractive design on a user.  Obviously, people want to own nice looking things more than ugly looking things.  But it never occurred to me just how important the visceral aspect of a product can be.  This is something I will certainly keep in mind way after reading this book and completing this book.

Book Reading 42 - Coming of Age in Samoa

Appendix III – Samoan Civilization as It Is Today
Summary
Samoan civilization has changed a bit over time and gained some European influence.  However, this has not killed off or destroyed their ways of the past.  Instead, they have absorbed and included aspects of European society that makes their lives easier and more comfortable, but have not taken in any of the negative that goes along with it.

Discussion
This again seems to show that our society is the source of the behavior of our adolescents.  The Samoan culture was able to absorb some of our features and even give their children some more choice.  However, they still have their classic way of doing things intact, so this has a lot to do with why they still don’t see the problems Mead was investigating for our society.

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Book Reading 41 – Why We Make Mistakes

Chapter 2 – We All Search for Meaning
Summary
This chapter explained how things can be hard to remember if they don’t have a clear meaning behind them.  When we remember, we are trying to recall meaning of information instead of factual information.  This comes into play when recalling a person’s face by associating an emotional trait with the face.

Discussion
I, like many people, have a lot of trouble remembering someone’s name, but remembering a face is quite easy.  I usually have to associate some feeling with the person or some event to remember the name past the initial meeting.  This chapter did a great job of explaining this kind of thing.

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Chapter 3 – We Connect the Dots
Summary
This chapter explained how humans make inferences and snap judgments on many thing in our lives.  One example was judging a politician within seconds solely based on the look of their face.  Another example was the increased level of pleasure people got from drinking wine out of a nicer looking bottle than a cheaper looking one.

Discussion
It would seem we largely operate off of our snap judgments that are almost always incorrect from the start.  Some of this is instinct, but getting less pleasure out of cheaper wine is way more psychological than anything.  Both nicer and cheaper wine would yield the same feeling from the alcohol.  It’s just the preconceptions that are getting in the way here of the reality of the situation.

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Paper Reading 18 – Activity Awareness in Family-Based Healthy Living Online Social Networks

Comments
Patrick Frith
Paola Garza

Reference Information
Activity Awareness in Family-Based Healthy Living Online Social Networks
 - Stephen Kimani, Shlomo Berkovsky, Greg Smith, Jill Freyne, Nilufar Baghaei, and Dipak Bhandari
 - IUI 2010, Hong Kong, China

Summary
This paper explained how to use a social network coupled with an activity awareness interface in order to help improve overall health of individuals.  The test they conducted set out to see if the activity awareness interface did in fact make user more aware of their health and the activities they can do to improve it.

An example of part of the Activity Awareness interface.

The activity awareness interface gave visual feedback through graphs of the user’s performance.  During the test, families of 4 (two parents, two children) with social network experience were chosen.  Some of the groups had access to the activity awareness interface, while others did not.  In the end, the overall experience of each group was collected.  It was found that the activity awareness interface was quite helpful to those who had it.  It also ended up motivating the users to be more active and be more aware of their overall health.

In the future, the designers would like to find ways to collect real-world user activity data.  This could then be compiled back into the activity awareness interface and improve the overall user experience.

Discussion
At first, I didn’t exactly see the point of this.  But after finishing the paper, this seems like an interesting idea.  With people being on computers so much now, finding ways to tap into that and help motivate people to be more active could help a lot.  To me, it seemed like this social network they were using was designed for this testing purpose.  I imagine it can later be adapted to major social networking sites, because having a separate network devoted this might not gain a large enough audience to make an impact on overall health.  Even still, this is an interesting idea in using technology to help promote physical health and awareness.

Ethnography Results – Week 7

There was just one interesting story again this week.  But it’s about accusations of witchcraft in the TSA.  This is good enough for just one story.

Commenting and Posting
Nothing to note here.

The Atheism Category
This woman working for the TSA was fired for being a Wiccan.  Well, not exactly.  What really happened was a fellow coworker accused her of casting a spell on her car and she was afraid she was in danger from it.  This other woman filed a complaint about it and eventually got her fired.  The woman who was fired had also complained about lax security measures in the airport, and this was listed as another reason for being fired.  She explained that after the spell-casting accusation, the other people she worked with wouldn’t help her with anything and essentially ignored.  Her upper management requested that she formally explain her beliefs.  This request was made before she got fired.  She refused on the grounds that a Christian or Jewish employee would never have to do the same thing.

This entire situation is completely ridiculous to me.  And I am not talking about the woman who practices Wicca.  So what if she does.  That is her personal preference.  This was clearly religious discrimination, and she did actually file a formal complaint about it.  She lost the first time probably because she was representing herself.  But she has filed an appeal and has a lawyer this time.  I honestly hope she wins.  I don’t care if there were other reasons for her being fired.  She was noted as being a great employee, and none of this started until some person accused her of witchcraft.  To me, this seems similar to firing or treating someone differently due to the color of their skin.  Someone’s outlandish accusation got this woman fired, and she deserves some kind of retribution.

Wrap-up and Plans for Next Week
I’ll admit I never knew much about Wicca before checking out this article.  I thought some of it had to do with witchcraft, but even if it did I never believed any of that stuff could be real.  The woman explained that for her, it is about appreciating nature and is similar to Native Americans and their religious beliefs.  This might not be the same for all Wiccans, but that still doesn’t give someone the right to discriminate.  Well, technically they can do whatever they want, but there should be consequences for such intolerant behavior.

For next week, I am hoping for more good stories like this one.  I would also like to have more than one that seems interesting.  This is still great information though.  And as for the commenting patterns of users, I think we are all planning to compile that data after the study is done.  We have not forgotten about it, but we just haven’t done as much with it as we had hoped to.