It Works and We Like Using It

No matter how comfortable and well upholstered a chair is, if a person’s goal is not to sit down but to take a shower they need a shower not a chair. With basic and common sense approaches to system design authors on task analysis and usability outline ways to test and examine real people performing actual or visualized tests so that the resulting system designs both function and do so elegantly; these methods can compliment each other to derive the best from both forms of analysis.

In the early days of the Web, basic text sites, with just simple links sold merchandise; one classic site that sold quite a bit of merchandise was a Christmas gift site, center-justified colored text with many links running straight down a single page decorated with randomly placed candy canes. Certainly such sites were not easy to find, nor easy to use and, in a word, ugly. But they were useful.

One might think by now we were way past questions around online goals, and into customizing beautiful interfaces, but with the plethora of reasons to use Webs the need to evaluate what people’s actual goals are in unique situations and combine ease of use customized with real goals has grown as the world reaches past the 100 million mark of live sites(1). We seek to both have things work and enjoy using them; using these techniques ensures both are likely.

To help designers improve systems Task Analysis focuses on what real people do to achieve their goals (Greenberg, 2003), and Usability Evaluations are based on evaluating how discoverable and possible the interface allows for people to achieve their goals (Krug, 2000). Both have the same goal – usable systems – but by different means. The difference is Task Analysis captures the working environment and demonstrates who the user is and what they are trying to achieve, what their goals are including failures. In the Usability Evaluation method the goal is to help designers increase how well end users can accomplish tasks, and even measure the difference from old systems to new ones.

Following the advice of these authors, from the beginning envision incorporating task centered design to follow and watch how users actually work, and make notes as they demonstrate the Web based software for the design process.

As you learn more about a system you tend to forget that you are making due, using workarounds to make up for system flaws, so it is just as you enter a system that it is best to carefully document and record what your own experience as well as the users immediately.

Paper prototypes are a swift approach to get to the first level of task centered design, and it is with this approach that the beginnings of usability start. Working with teams dispersed worldwide one plan of action is to rely first on local teams, using their feedback begin to construct clickable wire frames, iteratively requesting feedback. Scenario based design (Carroll, 2000) will also help make the designers job easier in terms of what it takes to display lots of data and make it useable.

Several authors make the same point that having just a few people perform some usability tests is better than no data at all, notably Nielson. All in all combining pulling from several methods from beginning to end will make both the process and the results better for everyone.

(1)“Web reaches new milestone: 100 million sites” CNN article located at: http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/internet/11/01/100millionwebsites/index.html?eref=rss_topstories

Written for IMT 540

Dr. Dave Hendry's University of Washington's iSchool Website

Building the Future of Software

The software industry shambles along :: agog at it's own creation.

Screaming caller's right to use software revoked by manufacturer

A while back working for a local software firm I heard a ruckus when an upset woman phoned into the support line and later she got more than she bargained for. She screamed so loud into the phone about her software problems and sounded actually furious enough to kill someone that the tech recorded the call, and summoned his supervisor to listen in, and put the call on mute so they could discuss it as the woman ranted and raved - as part of the slacker generation he found it utterly hilarious, the more he had tried to do something to fix the apparent problem the worse she became.

I was in the next room at the time listening to the bustle, and the tech laughing; playing back the end of the unbelievably loud call.

Well of course we weren't actually working for the software company directly we were working for an outsourcing firm, but we did have access to their old backend database which included detailed records of coded support calls.

Checking out the history of her calls it was discovered that this is what she did to get new software, call in sounding mad and escalate to sounding insane. The techs always blamed themselves so frequently a manager was called in to pacify the enraged woman and, of course, give her something - the something was always more software.

Kinda like throwing lighter fluid on a flame to extinguish it.

Using this tried and true technique she was able to have any software product (manufactured by that company) she wanted (I believe records went back to Aldus) - she had been taught that it worked so she used it.

It worked - at least until she met someone with a high degree of self confidence, experience, knowledge of the tools at his disposal, and an understanding of human nature.

Following up on the details I heard the following:
Managers called her to discuss the matter but in the first few minutes of the call the pattern repeated - confirmed -- they sent her a formal letter revoking her licenses and asking her to dispose of the products as she did not have legal copies any more.

In addition a team of lawyers visited her in person and served her with a legal notice that her licence to use the software was revoked.

Somehow I enjoyed the thought of these suited gentlepersons at her door giving her the news, there she is on a bright sunny day, was just working in her garden and doing a little design work - when surprise - karma boomerang! - even though that's a little sad.

So, speaking of sad - this is the kind of link that I would like to warn people about emotionally before clicking on it, I found it really disturbing -- Dolphins being harvested, including being dragged while alive behind trucks, and having their throats slit open:

http://www.glumbert.com/media/dolphin

A frowning face does not convey enough seriousness of the expression of potential harm to a viewer / friend -- so go there forewarned.

Docusign.net heuristic evaluation

https://www.docusign.net is the subject of this heuristic evaluation.

This application uses the technical convention of an authenticated user on a website printing a document to a local service which has been previously installed on the local box to obtain a legal signature from a remote party or to send or respond to such a request. This “printed” document then appears in a registry in the Web interface on which the user will perform actions which the Web services provides. The document with its various suggestions for use, such as SIGN HERE, grants the ability to have legal digital signatures.

From the point of view of a user the convention is sending a letter, with the contents, envelope, and stamp of approval, proof of receipt and similar mail conventions.

While I found it stunningly easy to use, there arose what I refer to as “Omissions of the 3rd Kind” which means they are not intuitive and require more in depth experience with the system to understand, or some simple reason prevents the enduser from understanding the interface such as fear of use.

The first one was encountered after successfully following the steps to install the application locally, and printing the document I wanted to send it to someone to have it digitally signed. As I went through the crabwise steps appearing and clicking “Next”



Addressing the header in the Envelope.

After passing through all the steps, it became apparent that the application was going to allow me to send a document to be signed but not to open and digitally sign a document myself, and then forward it. I stepped through the entire process, taking screenshots of the process. I located the help files and played them and found that the interface did support signing and sending. But first the document needed to be prepared with the locations for signing embedded in the file.

So I stepped through the application again. I felt that instead of “New” in the interface it might have a option to Request Signature, and one for Send Signature as a scenario based design could offer. But as I used it the second time it seemed more intuitive.

I took it at face value, I trusted it. Signers IS Signers – it is anyone including me. So I addressed the “Envelope” to myself.



Adding myself as the addressee for sending and signing

Then I simply followed each step as it was encountered. Forwarded the document to myself through the application and voila, it was done.

The only real limitation I could immediately discover considering the purposes I wanted to use it, is if the new window is open, any documents you have not “printed” will not appear in the open window. This application detests the back button which is not a familiar scenario for some kinds of web uses.

Eureka! This application works from the heuristic point of view and it works well, with three simple caveats
1. View the basic instruction presentation
2. Trust the application to lead you, don’t overthink it
3. Read the interface.

For most users I believe they could get this to work the first time.

Empathy in Well-considered Human Centered Design

Reviewing three basic value propositions to well-considered human centered design by activating the humanistic standard ‘empathy’ in real ways presented by Leonard & Rayport, Dr. Friedman and Holtzblatt & Beyer (see details at bottom of post) I feel that as humans make products it only seems practical for design concinnity to include human-involved practices in the field, resulting in recursive feedback into existing and new systems.

Each author offers a slightly different view of what effective empathy means, but all see it as helping individual people in particular and the masses in general, by listening and asking questions through a variety of methods. All mentioned work-arounds which people employ unconsciously to combat commonplace non-functional technical environments.

Empathy is the ability to feel affection for other living beings, like in a mirror image, to understand other’s motivation, from the dictionary –
“Identification with and understanding of another's situation, feelings, and motives.”
Or in less romantic terms from Holtzblatt and Beyer – “We want our feet to be sore where their shoes pinch ”

Leonard and Rayport see empathy as an exciting way to “delight the customer ” through a process of market research with observers capturing data, analyzing the brainstorming to create prototypes. They also consider it as culture shift to ensure sustainable successful companies. The AOL section seemed misplaced – who cares if a company is technical or not – nobody wants their private contact information sold without consent.

Friedman uses a business based phrase to capture the attention of managers with “Value Centered Design ”. Friedman championed people strongly, with her powerful view of empathy, she framed the wording and examples to convince businesspeople to attempt these solutions. Her crowning materials were the moral views on informed consent particularly where web based user tracking was outlined, illustrated with “how a user might benefit or be harmed by it’s use. ”

Holtzblatt and Beyer use empathy because people just want get their work done on computers, not focus on the tool itself. They elucidated the processes of contextual inquiry. They want users as “strong participants in the design process.”

There are nothing but advantages to the methods outlined with only a few disclaimers:
1. These adaptations consume cycles (resources) and increase the “time to market”; a clear short term disadvantage: as engineers say:
“What do you want for your product? Good quality? Inexpensive? Quick to get to the market? Good, cheap, quick: pick any two.”

2. Change to refocus on the real needs of consumers is impossible for some well established producers (dinosaurs). As Donald A. Norman states in “Want Human-Centered Development? Reorganize the Company”
“It is difficult for a company to make the transition to a consumer-driven marketplace.”

These megalithic monstrosities drive themselves out of business -- with top down management they will not allow employees to have input, much less customers.


3. From experience how could anyone think for a New York second that the practice of tracking end users through cookies does not affect their work? ‘Sniffers’ and ‘click trackers’ grind robust browsers down to a snail’s speed – to read these articles online SpyBot, defragger, and “anti-virus” software had to run to restore the browser’s speed to normal. Less knowledgeable users have to pay for support.

4. Democracy as a human value; living in a failing democracy one wonders if the highly prized human values stated in these article will linger long enough to overcome greed.

empathy. (n.d.). The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. Retrieved October 12, 2006, from Dictionary.com website: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/empathy

Holtzblatt, K., & Beyer, H. (1993). Making customer-centered design work for teams.Communications of the ACM, 36(10), 92-103. Retrieved 1 Dec 2004 from http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/163430.164050.

Leonard, D., & Rayport, J. F. (1997). Spark innovation through emphatic design. Harvard Business Review, 75(6), 102-113.

Friedman, B. (2004). Value Sensitive Design. Encyclopedia of human-computer interaction. (pp. 769-774). Great Barrington, MA: Berkshire Publishing Group.

Wicked Problems in User Interface Design

The wicked problem examples from urban planning that Rittle & Webber (1973) present ring true for information systems design because when addressing and serving more and more people’s diverse needs naturally wicked problems arise, hopefully to be solved, in large part with monkey-like mischievous solutions.

Working with Apple Computers, Mountford (1990) expressed those wicked problems in computer information systems outlining on the first page:
“The world is rich with data, rapidly becoming more and more varied in media type…
The challenge is how to best present and represent such data within the interface, to transform it into useful information.”

Making this suggestion for resolving these problems:
Future interfaces need to incorporate new information types and to accommodate new types of users with additional customized real-world interface metaphors that make information easy to find and use.”

Suggesting merging the efforts of two groups not generally thought of working together, scientists and artists. Comparisons from design traditions, animation, theater, architecture, industrial design, and information display (using Tufte’s famed cartography example of Napoleon’s March to Moscow: The War of 1812”). Suggesting looking at real world tasks and environments to find new ideas which in the technology and music fields we call “mashups” today, Mountford writes:
“Some people believe that new ideas are almost always the result of collisions –juxtapositions or recombinations of ideas” (Koestler, 1964)

These are outlined based on Adam’s (1986) brainstorming steps, as new uses for the object, adapt the object to be like something else, modify, magnify, minimize, substitute, rearrange, reverse or transpose, combine the data into an ensemble. This advice seems virtually the same as Jasper Johns’ esthetic theorem, now considered basic advice to artists --
"Take an object. Do something to it. Do something else to it."

Role playing is suggested as a creative exercise to delve more deeply into the change the idea or object metaphor, and outlining four personality and functional roles, the Explorer, the Artist, the Judge, the Warrior, that could be worn like a costume on Halloween, but accurately providing a warning that if interacting all at once, perhaps the role of the judge should wait to sort the ideas presented instead of eliminating them.

In a way Johns is a good example of the polar differences between scientists and artists, with information science providing solutions to needs looking for something one doesn’t know or have and Johns ‘something’ becoming something else based on “things the mind already knows. ”

Mountford ends advising interface designers to live in the present and future, anticipating the challenges for designers in new ways to use computers having suggested prototyping models, and these several techniques that are in wide use today.

Life too far in the future isn’t always economically feasible, but combining with role playing should help software projects remain practical and satisfying for those of us who enjoy building successful information tools and toys, or just imagineering we are. I feel the analysis is especially accurate as far as customizable user interface design goes.

Jasper Johns sketchbook, page 42 from 1963–1964 http://www.thenation.com/doc/20001218/danto/2

Quote obtained Oct 31, 2006 from http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/john/hd_john.htm

Rittle & Webber / Mountford on Wicked Problems

Rittle & Webber (1973) present the concept that due to the complex nature of human beings scientific answers fail because of the nature of the problems (in the context of Urban planning), such as hard to measure or soft things - societal concerns - which as stated:
“do not have a solution in terms of definitive and objective answer. ”

Mountford (1990) collects ideas from a variety of sources, and advises In effect doing the same thing for information system design - advising finding ways for artistic and scientific people to collaborate, approaching things from a variety of levels of human experience, stating:

“some of our new interface ideas will come from people who study thought, language, entertainment and communication, as well as from people who study hardware, algorithms, data structures. ”

However some wicked problems can only be resolved in granting end users rights and freedoms when it comes to information. Some problems are not served by direct end user participation because it won't help anything and it would not make sense for the many.

Take a WAP (wireless) phone application which has a GPS function (locator that knows where the end user is all the time), and a Search function, so if an end user wants to find a coffee shop within a short distance, they run a Search and the 5 closest coffee shops are returned.

What users may be interested in doing is setting their own preferences to Starbucks Only coffee houses, or only hotwired coffee houses which have computers available for rent. They may be interested in knowing how other people who went there rated the coffee, etc. They may also be planning to meet someone there for reasons other than coffee (but that is for an adult audience).

Google weighs query responses using a variety of ways, but one of them, perhaps the strongest, is by how many times someone clicks on it. This is just like voting - there is a good argument that personalization is the greatest contribution that the American post war baby boomers, with their large purchasing power have made and continue to make today. Companies, and other ensconced or older established organizations still experience enormous trouble facing these kinds of 1 to many, 1 to 1 individualization or personalization changes.

During today’s and yesterday’s job interviews I advised allowing end users to set their preferences on a Web site when they are at a full sized computer to help them find whatever they want on the smaller screen, even if some “father knows best” defaults must be present.

While there are things that the end user may wish to configure, the typical end user is not interested in exactly how the algorithm returned the Search sort to the database, and has no interest in writing it, or contributing to writing it, or even ever hearing the word "algorithm" -- users just want the results and fast.

One of the questions I was asked in a recent interview was a standard sort question for an algorithm, my response was true to that of a designer (or an end user) – “Find a database engineer, sorry that’s not how I think about or consider these problems.”

This remains a problem that inexperienced or less well educated technical or scientific approaches believe that individuals should know everything – most end user/customers can not function in this manner and should not be expected to think about how the machine runs to obtain the results they want, even if they have some kind of mental model.

Imagine if Google functioned only as well as the user’s understanding of search engines permitted – they wouldn’t find anything – they have to rely on Google’s code poets to figure out how to take Search from the functional status of a hammer and make it into a starship. Same goes for Live Search, in my humble option, but that’s a completely different subject.

The wicked quality of being human means that solving ill-defined and sticky problems should not be and can not be the domain of just one facet of thinking about a problem or a system, but as my recent interview demonstrates simplistic thinking about designers roles and customers needs still dominates the software industry.

One solution is everytime a designer uses the term BRAINSTORM and wants to use this technique they should define it so that all present understand that some wild and crazy ideas are likely to form, and just as likely they will go away later, leaving just the good stuff, it's all part of the process. If critics make their presence known immediately, the uber creative will find someplace friendlier to be.

Holtzblatt, K., & Beyer, H. (1993). Making customer-centered design work for teams.Communications of the ACM, 36(10), 92-103. Retrieved 1 Dec 2004 from http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/163430.164050.

Leonard, D., & Rayport, J. F. (1997). Spark innovation through emphatic design. Harvard Business Review, 75(6), 102-113.

Friedman, B. (2004). Value Sensitive Design. Encyclopedia of human-computer interaction. (pp. 769-774). Great Barrington, MA: Berkshire Publishing Group.

How do you go about developing a good design?

Developing good design intiality can be instant, but then refined iteraratively. If working with other people agreeing on a style of working together, process, and communication are very important.

Depends on what I am designing but generally I start on paper and work through wireframes and the relationship to other products, flesh out the design and maybe do a high end first pass.

I like to gather other people's opinions and datapoints so I will show it around and ask for input. Make some changes and go to the next step.

Sometimes a project also requires advising people what they need to learn or to understand in order to accomplish a very flexible interface. Elements like using the proportion of the golden rectangle (also called the "golden mean") makes user interface design beautiful.

Visio plans often help in visualization for everyone involved.

When we have something we are somewhat happy with I like to run it through user interface studies, even if they are informal using volunteers or paying to do a brief study. Oftentimes this will back up what you already believe about a design but what is really great is when you learn something totally unexpected and you can use it.

With my experience in fine art and design, I enjoy the critical review cycle, but it's always nice to give some positive feedback.

Most of my work is in product or program management so in this way I work interactively with lots of very smart people to design a composite of what we need, using the best ideas and best practices in a cooperative manner.

When designing a small business website, after meeting with the client I begin by structuring the information, and visualizing the look and feel of their site design. Then I follow my iterative process as time and their budget permits.

What is your definition of a well-designed product? Example/Why?

A well designed product is one which seamlessly performs as the customer thinks it should, and expects it to, and is easy to use.

An example is a product which gets fewer support calls.

Another definition is a product that is reliable, and doesn't cause systems or the OS to fail in the worse case, or leaks memory. On the web you don't want to over burden the client or make too many trips to the server.

A well designed product is one that in a way you don't notice, because nothing bugs you. A poorly designed product, for example is one that you can't even authenticate (in otherwords you can't use your userid and password to get into or there are severe complications.)

For an example of a good platform design; within the .Net framework, code is compiled rather than interpreted as ASP script is; this aids in early binding of objects directly resulting in performance gains. Since state management is handled within .Net, lines of code can be eliminated and this reduces the time required to load functionality.

Less processing time between pages contributes to an improved end user experience. A cleaner code set makes upfront development costs per feature less expensive, Web applications quicker to test and deploy, and as a bonus are easier to maintain and update.

I think a great product should be fun to use.

UI / UX Interview with Microsoft

Today I interviewed for a perm position at Microsoft to help redesign a product's training Web site.

What was cool about it was that in the course of our conversations I was shown the original designs for the Web site, and I quickly analyzed it and got everything right in terms of what they had already done and the improvements they needed to make.

But better than that I knew exactly where I could take them successfully to the next stage in functional design.

I discussed what basic changes to make it user friendly and easier to read and negotiate. I mentioned, because the audience would be predominately male, that the images and shapes should be attractive and relaxing to the eye, and begin with some females, then show people, including people of color working together on systems, laptops and with handheld devices.

Also I showed that the straight lines were too formal and tended to zoom the enduser's eyes right off the screen.

Then the interviewer showed me the next design, executed by two additional designers which surprise! surprise! surprise! - showed curved lines and a pleasant looking woman. It was "sexier" in the sense of appealing, and more relaxed.

Each time the interviewer showed me a new revision, I discussed what needed to happen - and I was correct each time - what an ego booster!I showed him some modern designs of a group of programmers and IT guys working in a friendly environment, but using futurist fonts, with a slightly Star Trek style design, that it was much more appealing to the audience they are designing the site for.

Speaking about flexible design (such as with CSS) and how to communicate process I showed him some designs that include process, and discussed how showing breadcrumbs and numbering processes is OK, it sets the enduser's expectation that it is a process, and how many steps to expect.

He also showed me some very bright red designs that covered the entire screen - I had to agree that it was more than a bit overwhelming. Color as used by a trained artist, who is also a colorist and understands the physiological and physical responses people have to strong color can be a useful tool, or it can fail to achieve useful goals if misused or misunderstood.

I discussed four primary design elements and strong design considerations for Web page design:
1. Who is your audience?
2. Where is the most useful real estate on a page and why is that vital?
3. What is the golden rectangle or golden mean and how is it used to direct the eye in refined designs?
4. How mammals, including human beings react to being presented with any screen or vista.

For me design is often spontaneous, it comes complete, or nearly complete in a flash of insight. Which is not to say that there are not going to be any changes. Often too I draw things on paper and evolve, consult with others, redesign, and rework until it is very close, and then do a final version which is submitted to be tested.

The UI testing, such as performed by information architect testers, often will uncover unexpected or unanticipated design flaws, which can be fixed and retested on an iterative basis.

In the case of working with Developers I found that they are readers pure and simple - if something is a huge red circle reading BUY ME HERE RIGHT NOW, they will skip it, and probably perceive it as an advertisement. But if it is in even a small font and reads, Buy name of product now then they will perceive it and click on that text.

This is exactly what the world's leading experts have been saying all along about design. For those interested in what is new in the field, considered checking out and subscribing to Dr. Jakob Nielsen's http://www.useit.com/alertbox/ current issues in Web usability.

Microsoft is a great company that has a lot of wonderful technology at it's fingertips - getting things right with the human - computer interface and interaction is a bit more difficult.

Intuitive Understanding of Systems and Design - new word "urbanophile"

Well nothing as deadly to a blog as posting a poem, so much for being a rule breaker!

All the real bloggers' rules I am breaking - you know who, where and what I am because I have associated my writing with my business, or at least with my business resume. And because I want you to know. But blogging in a freestyle with energy may be more effective and fun if you don't know the author, and if the author doesn't let on who he or she is.

It's like putting your business sign on your car - it's fine if you are a careful and considerate driver, but if like to drive your sportscar fast and you cut someone off accidently or they take offence, it is your business that is represented on the road.

Reading the real bloggers you don't even know what gender they are (Say hello George Sands). The wild and woolly days of self expression on the information hiway are here, to stay. There are ways to control traffic and monitize these sources of information, but real writing by real people is out and loose in the world.

So why did I do it this way-- because as a creative it must be sort of well, restrictive? Yes, well fundamentally it is, one only has so much time to do things like write. But for the greater good as both a left and right brained person, I want to have the left brained ones be able to find me so they can make clever use of my right brain & left brain bridges to help build a better world.

The techies, the geeks, and nerds thought we had our brave new world in our hands - even some retired before the snakeoil salesmen took over what had been a grand fun time leading up to the high tech craze and crash of 2001. Nothing was as hollow as the white man's getto of Silicon Valley in 2000.

I even laughed off my "psychic friends" who warned me, prior to 1995, that things were going to hit the wall and turn ugly after about 2000 - they warned me that money would be more difficult to come by. Look at all this money I am making I thought! Hey I'll be able to buy a house, continue to travel and meet some of my nerdy interior goals. It doesn't even matter that I left millions of dollars worth of stock on the table at Microsoft in '93 and at RealNetworks in '96.

But my feeling that despite how much torture I had to endure in the linear thinking, instructional based, right brain repressive, non-expressive universe of the technical knowledgeworker, that some day it would be worth the trauma appears to be coming to fruition.

In the old days my heart hurt alot. After working in tech my personality changed significantly - I became kinder, truer, and gentler. I found that there is no where to hide and nothing to defend, because you are always with you. The wildchild was tamer, but rather than sensing immediate changes, continued to use my intuition to sense things as they might become - with some accuracy. I gave the first public speech at Microsoft on the advent of the Internet, asking the user education folks to store their files intended for printing instead of deleting them so we could distribute them in the future.

Being fundamentally (one could say 'terminally') creative is not something you erase by working with technology, but it is important to get along with people in the world. To me not just get along with them, by hopefully to teach by example, and encourage them on their mission in the world. It is not my job to change others, I found, only myself.

The tech industry now needs me to be a nexialist - a jack of all trades - a designer with an INTUITIVE urbanophile understanding of systems, software and design so we can more effectively combine it with meeting human needs.

We are very much in the early days of technology, and even if I and other can see clearly into the future, it is step by step that we meet that future creating it as it arises.

Yes, I still love Paul Simon's melodic ballads and Green Day's rants, En Vogue is major eye candy but who cares? I can't spell worth a darn because I still think words can be spelled all kinds of different ways. Sometimes I have to hear something twice to memorize it. I was made to feel terrible about that in a work review 15-20 years ago - "Some times Linda has to hear information twice". But then I was reading the life story of one of the world's great ancient pandits, and there it was, "Sometimes I have to hear something twice" What a relief! If the smartest man in the world admitted that sometimes he had to hear something twice, what hope is there for the rest of us?

People have their own problems, it does not one twit of good if we take it on ourselves.

NOTE: Torture is a word so uncommon to my use that I looked it up on the front page of CNN - some woman named Linda is happily married to some man named John and they love to torture kids in Florida by pulling out their toenails and beating them with a hammer - and people worry about Jackson - harm comes in all kinds of ways and affects people really differently. I could not spell torture well enough to find it via Dictionary.com - technology is for me not against me - at least I can spell it.