Confirmation? Feedback Loop? Forgiveness? Redundancy? Huh?

If you have submitted your orientation exercise with the correct subject line to Byron's Chico State email address, you should have received an automated response. If you didn't get the response, something went wrong and you should investigate.

This posting and the return e-mail are good examples of which of the following UPOD (Universal Principles of Design) terms?

Confirmation

Feedback Loop

Forgiveness

Redundancy

You'll have to pick up the book and look into it as the answer isn't as obvious as it might first appear. Five bonus points will be awarded to the first person to select - and specifically and accurately explain - which is the most correct. Please use the comments link below to respond.

Byron

Comments

[Scott]

I'll give it a go.

I think the email confirmation is an example of forgiveness, which is used to minimize and avoid errors. Forgiveness prevents these errors from happening, which in this case would be you not receiving the exercise.

The book points out "Warnings" as a way forgiveness can be implemented. While the book uses a street sign's warning of danger of an example, not receiving the confirmation email works just the same way: warning us that something has gone wrong and asking that we take caution to investigate why we did not receive said confirmation.

[Byron Wolfe]

Scott, I like your logic and initiative and I'll give you a couple of points. And there's definitely an element of forgiveness built into our communication system. But I think there's an even better answer out there. Anyone?
Byron

[Alysen]

I also think the email confirmation is an example of forgiveness. After reading all the definitions, this term seems to make the most sense and connect with it. In the book, it states that forgiveness is a design that should help people avoid errors and minimize the negative consequences of errors when they do occur. I see the term forgiveness and the email confirmation as a way to prevent us students in forgetting an assignment. As a student, when I get an email about a homework post, it reminds me about that assignment and when its due thus lessening my chances of error and forgetting to do it. As mentioned in the first post, if you don't get an email, there is a warning and you should take caution because there either is an error or will be if you don't look into the problem.

[Hannah Vine]

I believe that both of these are examples of redundancy. The definition states redundancy is, "The use of more elements than necessary to maintain the performance of a system in the event of a failure of one or more elements." Both emails provided as confirmation that we had in fact successfully submitted our assignment and the second one acts as a backup in, "the event of a failure".

By utilizing repetition or redundancy it ensures that if in fact some error occurred during our submission of this assignment we would have a multitude of methods to discover and ultimately resolve the error.

[Alix Burgess]

I believe that both emails are an example of forgiveness. The book defines forgiveness as "a tool to help people avoid errors and minimize the negative consequences of errors when they do occur". Both emails exemplify this concept. The first email was to make sure that, as students, we do not miss any assignments and fall behind in the class. The second email was to make sure that we did not occur errors in subscribing to the website.

[Byron Wolfe]

Thanks for the entries. You'll all get a couple of points. Hannah is the closest so far. But more precision is possible. Come on, give it a whack.

Off to class, so I won't respond for a while.
Byron

[Amber Speciale]

I think that the e-mails are examples of forgiveness. Based off of page 104 in the book, confirmation is a key tool in forgiveness. It states that confirmation is "verification of intent that is required before critical actions are allowed". The example that was given after that was one of opening a lock. That the lock much be opened before any equipment can be activated. In a way the return e-mails were a tool in allowing us to continue on to the next step in the class.

[Hannah Vine]

To specify more i would guess that what is being used in these emails is Homogeneous Redundancy. Through the utilization of a "single type" of multiple elements in this case, email and this website, we can be less susceptible to failure. However it also says, " the type of cause that results in failure in one element can result in failure of other elements." So for example if the email address is incorrect or someone had the incorrect website both methods could ultimately fail.