Tag Archives: fawntia

Meet the Staff! An Interview with Fawntia Fowler

Fawntia Fowler has been an engineer with HubPages for over three years and has made features such as the Map Capsule, HubNuggets, Hub of the Day, the signed-in homepage, new Hub designs, and the Apprenticeship Program possible. Aren’t you curious to know more about the woman behind these fantastic aspects of our site and community? You should be- Fawntia is a really cool and interesting person (who also happens to have the world’s cutest dog). Check out her answers to various Hubbers’ questions below!

Can you tell us more about the Japanese themed public school you attended in Oregon? Do you feel it affected how you approach the learning process? -rebekahELLE

Sure. The school that I went to was started by a group of parents who were unhappy with the regular public schools in the district. The original plan was to have ALL of our classes taught in Japanese (except English class, I suppose!) but it soon became apparent that we didn’t have the resources to make that happen. So, instead, we had a single Japanese class every day and sometimes Japanese culture classes.

Another unusual thing about the school was that every class had blended ages. The school only had about 50-60 students ranging from 4th to 12th grade, so it was commonplace to have kids a few years younger or older in your classes. Sometimes, that meant that students were expected to work independently and only occasionally get help from teachers. That was especially true of our mathematics classes, which many kids hated, but it worked well for me. I suspect that being forced to work through problems on my own gave me the confidence to major in mathematics in college. I wish that I could say that I use the Japanese that I learned, but I don’t really! I’m still glad that I learned it, though. I’m also happy that I got to know several people from Japan. (Some exchange students and teachers lived with my family for a few years.)

Another good thing about the school was that it introduced me to programming when I was pretty young (about 10 years old), and that certainly had an effect on my life. (Programming is my job at HubPages.)

What do you love about your job? What do you hate (or love a whole lot less)? -Marcy Goodfleisch

I love that I get to create things that other people care about. I love that HubPages is flexible about when and where work gets done, as long as it gets done. Sometimes I get sick of being in front of a computer screen all day, but there’s not much that can be done about that!

Are you strictly a 9-5 outfit? Or do you have workaholics that work into the night, holidays and weekends? – Arlene V. Poma

Most people show up at the office between 8 and 10 and leave between 5 and 7, but there’s no set schedule. Sometimes people work from home for all or part of the day, too, so it’s hard to say for sure! Our moderators probably have the craziest schedules.

Does HP have any Friday traditions? Things like casual day, big box of donuts next to the coffee machine, group lunch at TGIF, etc -paradigmsearch

We have a group lunch on Thursdays, actually. Lately, salads have been very popular, but last week we went out for Dim Sum together.

What’s your favorite thing about San Francisco? -wordscribe43

Either the restaurants, or the fact that you can get almost anywhere without a car.

What’s the best restaurant close to HP headquarters? -wordscribe43

The best restaurants I’ve been to in San Francisco are, sadly, not near our office. The area around where we work is known as SOMA (which stands for South of Market Street). A lot of people work in this neighborhood, but live elsewhere, which means that the restaurants here cater to the lunch crowd far more than the dinner crowd. (It’s amazing how deserted this area gets in the evenings!)

But as for lunch, I think that takeout from Mehfil Indian Restaurant is the best combination of quality and reasonable price. Their lunch menu changes every day, which is nice. I try to bring lunch from home most days, though.

Do you still watch cartoons? What cartoons do you like to watch? -prettydarkhorse

I don’t regularly watch cartoons, but one of my favorite shows is a cartoon. It’s a Nickelodeon show called Avatar: The Last Airbender. Don’t judge it by the movie version, which I heard was terrible! My dog is named after the character Appa in Avatar (who is a flying six-legged sky bison). I’m watching the follow-up show called The Legend of Korra now.

Testing a New Hub Design on Technology Hubs

A couple weeks back, we rolled out a new Hub design on Fashion and Beauty Hubs and have been monitoring its performance while making small tweaks. Before we settle on a new site-wide Hub design, we have decided to test out another new Hub design that adopts a radically different approach.

The new Hub design that we are rolling out as a test on Hubs within the Technology Topic is a clear departure from the Fashion and Beauty design. In this case, we have stripped away all but the most essential features on the page, leaving the look as streamlined as possible. This is done in an effort to reduce the time it takes for the page to load, eliminate distractions, and allow the content of the Hub itself to truly shine.

While we have removed all unnecessary components from this experimental design, we have also made some attempts to make the page more attractive. Notice the new background, which has been given a tech-related treatment. Should this new look be adopted site-wide, each Topic on HubPages would have its own distinctive but subtle background image.

As we experiment with this new design, we will slowly add back elements to the page to see what mixture of features leads to optimal performance. Because there are fewer ads in this initial test, you may see a slight drop in the ad revenue you earn from your Technology Hubs. Then again, you may see an increase in earnings as fewer distractions may lead to higher clickthrough rates. Keep in mind that this is a test, and that in the end, we will settle on whatever design leads to the best user experience- both for readers and Hubbers.

Big thanks to MickiS for championing this test, props to Fawntia for quickly executing the change, and a hearty hat tip to Amy Liu, who created the new Hub’s design!