User:JordanMNugent/My sandbox

Technological Infrastructure
Technological Infrastructure refers to the basic physical and organizational structures needed for the operation of a society or enterprise,or the services and facilities necessary for an economy to function. It can be generally defined as the set of interconnected structural elements that provide framework supporting an entire structure of development. In the context of StumbleUpon, it refers to the tiers and the major functions of the website.

Functional Tiers
The Functional Tiers of StumbleUpon refers to the presentation, processing, and data tiers of the website.

The Presentation Tier
The Presentation Tier of StumbleUpon refers to the website, user interface, and toolbar of the website.

The Processing Tier
The Processing Tier of StumbleUpon refers to how the website finds, retrieves, and presents according to user specification information relating to what the user will see.

The Data Tier
The Data Tier of StumbleUpon refers to how you entered the website, which pages or content have been liked and which have been disliked, and StumbleUpon's knowledge of user preferences. It also refers to the database of user information, along with any other data stores that StumbleUpon may have.

Major Functions of StumbleUpon
The major functions of StumbleUpon refers to the most important features of the website. These are features that directly affect the users experience on the website and enrich the use of StumbleUpon. Among those is "Stumble", collaborative filtering, search, rating by friends and peers, personal interests, reviews from the community forum, StumbleVideo and StumbleThru.

Collaborative Filtering
Collaborative Filtering refers to an automated process combining human opinions with machine learning of personal preference. It is in essence how StumbleUpon decides which websites to show next. StumbleUpon has a complicated algorithm that combines a users interests and each pages popularity/rating to decide which website to show next.

Stumble
Stumbling is the primary function of StumbleUpon - it is in actuality the entire point of the website itself in that each additional function relies on Stumbling to work. The UI behind Stumbling is the "Stumble" button, located in the top left of the StumbleUpon toolbar. When a user presses "Stumble," they are taken to a new website. StumbleUpon then uses its algorithm to determine the next site, wherein it takes into account the user's interest, past favorited sites, and the site's popularity. A user is then able to view the website for as long as they wish - they then press the "Stumble" button again and are taken to the next website.

Search
Search is a processing function of StumbleUpon, and it is how they choose content to display to users. StumbleUpon collects your opinion and uses it with other user opinions to create a formula for selecting and displaying content.

Rating
Rating refers to how social networks coordinate the distribution of web content so that users StumbleUpon pages explicitly recommended by friends and peers. When a user likes a website on StumbleUpon it places the website under the users favorites.

Personal Interests
The personal interests portion of StumbleUpon first comes into play when one first joins the site. The basic idea behind personal interests is matching a user to sites they would like to see – it does so by allowing a user to choose from an index of interests, placing a checkbox by each interest that said user chooses. From there, it uses an algorithm to display sites related to those chosen interests. The personal interests function is simple in that it is merely a combination of index and hierarchy. Interests are split up into categories, and the subcategories are listed in an index form. This index/hierarchy hybrid serves directly as the UI as well.

Reviews
The reviews function of StumbleUpon allows users to rate, comment, and share websites that they have seen using the website. It also serves as StumbleUpon’s social aspect, as people are able to give their own feedback separate from the site itself. The reviews function makes use of the “thumbs up” button as well, which is a way for users to favorite a website and make it known that they have done so. The UI is at first included within the StumbleUpon toolbar, immediately to the right of the search box. When a user presses the reviews button (displayed as chat bubbles) it takes the user to a separate webpage wherein one can comment and view previous comments as well. The user can also view who has favorite the website from this page. The organizational structure of the reviews function is mainly links, as the button takes the user directly to the reviews page. Comments are listed in a sequence by most recent, and past users who have tagged the page as a favorite are listed in a links format.

StumbleVideo
StumbleVideo is StumbleUpon’s video service, at a different URL: http://video.stumbleupon.com/. It works much the same as the original site, allowing users to browse through videos that other users have submitted. The UI of StumbleVideo consists of a primary toolbar at the top, a content box in the middle, and another smaller toolbar at the bottom. The main UI toolbar is characterized by a primary “Stumble” button which, when clicked, displays a new video in the content box. It also has a “like it” button, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn share buttons, a login module, a signup module, and a dropdown menu for additional video categories. The bottom toolbar has the same buttons with a few exceptions: an additional “thumbs down” button, no share buttons aside from an email share button, a “channels” button, and an option to expand or minimize the toolbar itself. The algorithm for StumbleVideo is how the website decides which video to show when a user clicks the “Stumble” button. It does so by allowing the user to choose a category from the main toolbar dropdown menu. From there, it shows videos based on user input, such as if a user presses the “thumbs up” or “thumbs down” buttons., which are aided by an Ajax interface. StumbleVideo uses a mainly hierarchical organizational structure for its video categories, as it first separates them into “Popular, Video Channels, Interests, and Sites”. From there, the structure varies but it is mostly an index as it organizes the subcategories in alphabetical order.

StumbleThru
StumbleThru is an additional service to the primary StumbleUpon website. It allows users to use StumbleUpon’s toolbar to “Stumble” within specific websites as opposed to the entire web. The UI is the same as the original StumbleUpon toolbar, with a Stumble button, a “thumbs up” button, a Facebook button, a Twitter button, a share button, a categories drop-down menu, a login prompter, and a sign-up prompter, and finally a homepage button that takes the user back to StumbleUpon. The algorithm works the same as the original StumbleUpon as well, just constricted to a certain website’s content. A user is first shown a single article on the page, and each time the user presses the “Stumble” button, a new article is displayed. The next article to be shown is calculated based on what the user has “thumbs upped” as well as their interests as chosen on the toolbar drop-down menu. It uses the same orginaztional structure as the original StumbleUpon toolbar as well – the drop-down menu acts as both a hierarchy and an index, as it is broken up into sub-categories that are listed alphabetically. The rest of the toolbar’s components are buttons, except for the homepage button, which is a link.

Information Infrastructure
Information Infrastructure is how information is divided and structured.

Intro to Info Model
Information models have types, attributes, value patterns, and relationships between types. Info types are kinds of information that a system cares to create, store and display. These info types have attributes, which are representing characteristics of each info types.

Info Type 1: User information
Most important part of the StumbleUpon is information about the user. StumbleUpon finds websites that match interest of users based on user information. Based on what users choose as their interests and their likes, StumbleUpon suggests a random, but related to what users set their interests, website at a time to users. Without any information of user, they would not be able to suggest good websites to users. It is very important to fill out user's information right because StumbleUpon also works as a social network. Users interact with the others by sharing their interests and information.

Attributes
Attributes of user information includes name, interests, birth date, password, email address, and gender.

Value Patterns
Value patterns of user information would be name (Letters), Interests (choose from a selection), birth date (MM/DD/YYYY), password (letters and/or numbers) email address (abc@defg.eee), and gender (M/F). This set of rules would prevent any errors that could arise by mistakes.

Info Type 2: Contents
When users put their information, StumbleUpon finds out contents that match to each users' interest. This is one of the important component of StumbleUpon, because users use StumbleUpon to watch those contents. Without these contents, StumbleUpon would be an empty website. It is important because it shows how popular and many reviews on it. With this, users can distinguish what information is worthy enough to click on or not.

Attributes
Attributes of contents in StumbleUpon includes category, uploaded date, views, and website where content is from.

Value Patterns
Value patterns of contents would be category(words), uploaded date (MM/DD), views(number), website where content is from( aaaaaa. com)

Info Type 3: Stumble
This feature enables users to randomly meet a website that is closely tied with their interests. As mentioned earlier, interest shows up as an attribute when users are signing up for it, but it is different afterwards. Interest shows as an info type and interests are categorized into 15 attributes. There are more interests into these attributes. After one sets one's interests, Stumble button is ready to go. This is special feature because it shows the content and attributes are placed on the bar on the top of the page.

Attributes
Attributes of Stumble in StumbleUpon includes Stumble, Thumbs up or down, Facebook, Linkedln, Twitter, Share, All interests, reviews, and user who posted. They are all placed on top of the page and consist with buttons.

Value Patterns
Because the majority of attributes are in buttons, only Thumbs down and All interests have values with selection of options.

Info Type 4: Stumbler
Stumbler is a feature that connects a user with the others. It is important because the website itself can connect with other social networking giants, including Twitter and Facebook. StumbleUpon works like secondary social networking service. Although users can have friends on StumbleUpon, users can broad their social network by connecting StumbleUpon with Facebook. Stumbler is a just term that express the users of StumbleUpon

Attributes
There are Connect with Facebook and Find Friends. Although these attributes are links and not included in StumbleUpon, it is still very simple and easy to use.

Value Patterns
There are no value patterns that are consist of words.

Introduction to structures
Organizational structure refers to the design in which information is delegated and coordinated. There are the four organizational structures (link, sequence, index, and hierarchy) which are critical in establishing a smooth flow of information between a website and its users. Below are examples of organization structures as found in StumbleUpon.

Introduction
A link is a clickable word, phrase, or an image that serves as a bridge between different sections of a single or multiple websites. Upon clicking, the link activates and immediately transfers the user to its associated section.

Example
StumbleUpon suggests numerous websites with a single click of a search link after entering a keyword. Each website is then suggested as a link that will redirect you from StumbleUpon to the website. Upon entering a different site through StumbleUpon, a small bar is left on the top of the user’s browser with links that allow an easy navigation back to StumbleUpon.

Discussion
StumbleUpon is an engine that acts as a terminal allowing its users to discover and rate different websites. Naturally, StumbleUpon has multiple forms of links present in each page allowing a user to freely navigate its contents. StumbleUpon’s purpose to its users is largely dependent on the websites acting as its content, meaning links are frequent and abundant when navigating StumbleUpon.

Introduction
Sequence is the arrangement in which the information is laid out. It is designed to express a coherent relationship of different information; in other words, sequence could be defined as the order of following in the display of information.

Example
‘Discover’ tab on StumbleUpon lists recommended sites. Out of the four sub-tabs in which you can view the recommended websites, ‘Recent Activity’ is the default layout in which the websites are listed. This does not show a specific date and time the website was reviewed but shows a part of the most recent review as part of the website’s description.

Discussion
StumbleUpon is a website that values random sequence as part of its core design. However, they have sections within the website where its contents are in chronological sequence. When the users are unable to find a satisfactory destination using its randomized search system, it allows the users to be able to list websites that have been recently reviewed by other users.

Structure 3: Index
thumb|Index

Introduction
Index is an organized list in alphabetical or numerical orders of names, subjects, menus, and etc.

Example
StumbleUpon is a great website to connect users to high-quality pages matched to user’s personal preferences. One of example for Index is using StumbleUpon toolbar. When users do not know what to explore or what they are interested at, they can explore any of their interest by clicking search blank on the toolbar and clicking one of menu called “Popular”. Once user clicks “Popular” menu, a webpage will show up the suggested list of broad topics in an alphabetical order.

Discussion
StumbleUpon provides an outstanding feature that entertains users with suggesting keywords.

Introduction
Hierarchy is an organizational structure that classifies information in order of level of importance.

Example
A hierarchy is like a great big table of contents. Hierarchy followed by heading and more levels. It has information under information. On StumbleUpon, hierarchy is everywhere. One of examples for hierarchy is clicking subcategories of “Explore StumbleUpon”. When users click “Music” category, a list of popular music keywords will appear onto new webpage. If users want to explore about music, they can click one of keywords like “Jimi Hendrix” then StumbleUpon will connect users to the webpage that shows the list of people who like “Jimi Hendrix” and also tells how many stumblers like this artist. The more explore the links the more levels will appear.

Discussion
Hierarchy is convenient structure to narrow down users interests. Hierarchy helps users to pick a broad topic to find their specific interests.