WriteAPrisoner.com

WriteAPrisoner.com is a social website, whose main goal is to promote positive change for current inmates in prisoners all over the nation. This website's main goal is to reduce recidivism and raise awareness among the community. WriteAPrisoner.com provides opportunities for the public to communicate with current inmates, by having inmates publish personal profiles on the website. WriteAPrisoner.com also provides resources for inmates in the areas of education, housing, careers, etc.

Technological Infrastructure

Functional Tiers

There are three main tiers to every Information system. These tiers are presentation, processing, and data. The Technological Infrastructure of www.writeaprisoner.com is as follows:

Presentation: This is the top-most layer of the application. The presentation tier involves the things the user interacts with (user interface). It translates tasks and results to something the user can comprehend more easily. The client (user) makes a request to the server by clicking a link or interacting with the page in some way, and the server delivers what the client has requested. The presentation tier can also incorporate HTML, which influences the overall look and feel of the page.

Processing: The processing tier coordinates the application, performs calculations, and processing requests. It also moves data between the presentation and data tiers. An example of this is when you are sending a message to a prisoner over the site. When you send your message the webserver is simply delivering the data you input. So you type your message and push the send button and the message is sent to the server. The server processes your "request" and then sends it to the appropriate recipient.

Data: The data tier primarily involves a database where data/information is stored. The data is the actual information or the "bits" that are stored. Data can be anything you submit to a site, to a site's knowledge of what you did at their site, to information the site has provided itself. Often the data that is stored in a database will end up being processed and then sent through the processing tier back to the presentation tier again.

Functions

Major Features

A function is an action on the user interface, that has a purpose, procedure, algorithm, and some impact on data. The difference between a feature and a function is that a feature is the algorithm behind the function, and the function is the end user view.

Inmate Locator

Being that WriteAPrisoner.com is a social website for providing profiles of thousands of inmates from all over the country, it is only natural that there be a feature to help locate specific profiles. This feature is named “Inmate Locator”. The Inmate Locator uses various filters to narrow your search of inmates. The basic search uses qualities such as age range, sexuality, location, ethnicity, etc. to find an inmate to connect with. The advanced search includes additional qualities such as eye color, hair color, poetry, blogs, incarceration date, etc. In addition to these two types of searches, the user can also browse profiles by most recently updated, most recently created, age, or random.

The user interface for the inmate locator feature consists of 2 different tabs for searching, one is basic search and the other is advanced search. In Basic Search, there are drop down menus showing all the possible values for each attribute of the search. For example, when searching by location, a drop down menu displays all 50 states, Africa, Zambia, and Thailand for the user to select from. In Advanced Search, the same drop down menus exist, with the addition of text boxes for the user to type in the first and last name of the inmate. The user can also select bubbles to fill in (similar to saying if the quality is true or false) to filter their search further, such as if the inmate profile has artwork, a blog, poetry, etc. on their profile.

The basic idea of the algorithm behind the inmate locator is that of most social searches. When a user searches for an inmate, they are actually searching an information database. WriteAPrisoner.com most likely uses a database with many different tables, filled with information items, attributes, and values which correspond to inmates, qualities/characteristic types, and qualities/characteristics of that specific inmate. When a user selects filters to specify their search results and clicks the "search" button, the client website queries the server, the server retrieves the information queried by means of SQL delivers the retrieved information to the client, and the client then displays the information in the presentation tier (in the form of the user interface). For example, on WriteAPrisoner.com, the client would query the server for inmates with brown hair, incarcerated in 2008,and from the state of California. This query would tap into the database and find all rows (items) with columns (attributes) that match those descriptions, and that information would be displayed on your computer screen within milliseconds. WriteAPrisoner.com most likely has a thin client and a large server, because most of the action goes on in the processing and data tiers (located in the server) when a user searches for an inmate, and the presentation tier simply displays the final result of all the work being done in the two "behind the scenes" tiers.

The inmate locator showcases a variety of organizational structures and information types. An index can be seen in the links to the results pages, because the results page numbers are in numerical order and each page number is linked to a results page. This function also shows the idea of links. On the results page, after clicking on an inmate’s name (in blue text), the user is directed to that inmate’s profile. This function also displays a sequence, after searching by filters such as “newest profiles” or “most recently updated”, it displays the profiles in a sequential order based on date of publication or date of last update.

Blogging

Blogging is a major function of WriteAPrisoner.com . Blogs allow prisoners to express feelings and thoughts in a positive, constructive way.

Blogs involve a very simple client to server interaction. The client inputs data which the server processes and displays. In other words, the inmate (client) writes his blog, clicks the “publish” button (sends a request to the server), and the server turns that data/blog into something that users can read and interact with.

The user interface for blogging is a hierarchy which involves a drop-down tab that displays different prisoner’s pictures and their names. Each prisoner’s photo is a link to their blog and the blog posts are in a sequence placing the most recent posts at the bottom of the page and the oldest posts at the top of the page. From each inmate’s blog there are also links to the inmate’s profile and photo gallery.

Posting on Forums

Registered users of WriteAPrisoner.com can communicate with one another by creating and commenting on the forums. You can begin a new topic by clicking on the “post new thread” button at the top of the page, or you can comment on a pre-existing thread by clicking the “reply to thread” button at the bottom of the page. The site algorithm makes it so that comments appear in the order and time they were posted, with the older comments shown first followed by the newer ones. The list of possible threads to join is also done in a sequence, but going in the order from the most recent to the oldest.

Edit Inmate Profile

With the function of editing an inmate's profile, you can change all aspects of the profile. This includes name, facility, age, and everything of the sort. This function is a paid function and the cost varies based on the different edits that you make. The user interface is fairly simple. It gives you attributes such as name and facility, and then next to each attribute is a text box in which you can fill in or edit the value. What this does in the processing tier is it organizes the data into a table. This table organizes the information by attribute and value so that each column is an attribute and each row is a different info item (inmate profile). The website then displays this information in a organized fashion in the presentation tier, to create the inmate profile.

Games

After clicking on the Games for Inmates link on the main page, the user is directed towards a Fun For Inmates! welcome page that lets the user choose to create one of three types of puzzles: Word Search, Number Puzzles, and Number Search. Upon clicking the Word Search and Number Search puzzles, the user is directed to a page where they can customize the difficulty of the game with criteria such as: in what direction the answers can appear, what words are used (in the case of the Word Search) and how long the searched for numbers are (in the case of the Number Search). All three of the puzzle games have an option to print them off or to download a PDF of the puzzle and a randomize button to reset the puzzle with another randomly generated one that fits the requirements.

Information Infrastructure

Info Model

In an information system, an information model is the architecture for the how the information is organized and structured. In an info model, information is organized into types, items, attributes, and value patterns. The "type" is the topic of information, the "item" is one specific instance of that topic, the "attribute" is a quality/characteristic of that item, and the "value pattern" is the substantial information under each attribute.

Info Types and their Relationships

All the types in an information system are related to one another in various ways. The mapping of the relationships between types is called a "schema". In the schema on WriteAPrisoner.com, all the types are somehow related to the inmate themselves. An inmate is one type, who belongs to one (or more) prisons, who also has one blog, who can publish one (or more) pieces of artwork, who also has one astrological sign.

Inmate

The primary type on WriteAPrisoner.com would be the inmates themselves, because they are the individuals that provide the basis for other types to exist and be related to. Prisoners have individual profiles in which they can provide personal information, a short biography, photos, legal information, etc. The information type is "inmate". The information item is one specific inmate. The information attributes is the name, photo, address, date of birth, etc. of each inmate. The information value patterns would be the inmate's first and last name, a JPG image, prison address, and MM/DD/YYYY.

Artwork

Another info type that is on WriteAPrisoner.com is the artwork that the prisoners can upload. The info type is the artwork uploaded and each info item is a different piece of artwork uploaded by a prisoner. Each piece of artwork has attributes such as artist, location, frame, size, etc. For each piece of artwork, the values are different making each piece of artwork an info item.

Blog

The blogs that the prisoners can post on are an information type. The blog post is linked to an inmate, which is another type. For each blog there are attributes for the date, the category the blog is about, and basic information about the inmate.

Astrological Sign

Type: Astrological Sign

Item: Cancer, Gemini, Pieces, Aquarius, Leo

Attribute: associated personality traits

Values: lively, youthful, witty, sheltered, emotional

Prison

Type: Prison

Item: Individual prison

Attribute: address, state, city, type of prison, prison capacity

Value: Wisconsin/Washington/Idaho, medium security/high security/correctional complexes/administrative/satellite prison/federal/national, 300 inmate/500 inmates/20 inmates

Diagram:

Organizational Structures

In an information model, all of the types, items, attributes, and values can be organized in various ways that make up the user interface. Four main models are a hierarchy, index, link, and sequence, and all four of these structures can be seen on WriteaPrisoner.com

Hierarchy

In the photo, we can see a drop down menu leading to various options, and under those options are even more options to select. In the computer world, this kind of organizational structure is called a “hierarchy”, and is similar to a table of contents. Each tab in the menu bar drops down to lead to more options, and those options lead to even more options. We can think of this hierarchy as a “mother and child” relationship. We can consider the “Inmate Profiles” tab the mother, under which is the “Inmate Alphabetical Listing of Profiles” tab (the child), under which is the “(Text Only Version)” tab (child of the child). In moving down the hierarchy of options under the original tab, we are getting more and more specific to the type of information that we are in search of.

In this hierarchy, the types are each tab in the menu tab. Each tab is an information item, and under each of those items in the drop down menu are all of its attributes. Finally, under those attributes, are its values. The user interface is very user-friendly for this specific hierarchy. The user simply needs to mouse over each tab to reveal the next level of the hierarchy, as opposed to being redirected to a new page. This hierarchy has a simple user interface, thus increasing the number of users who feel comfortable using the system.

Index

The side bar menu on the home page is an index of links. This index is un alphabetical order by name. Refer to the diagram to the right.

Links

From the home page and search page, people can find the names and photos of inmates that will directly link to their profile. In this case, the info type being organized would be the inmate. The photos and names of the inmates appear by recentness unless the search is refined, also providing a short except of their profile for the user to read. This design works effectively as the user can appraise both the appearance of the inmate and their description at once, and easily click on the picture or name of the inmate to access their profile.

Sequence

The largest and most prominent sequence on WriteAPrisoner.com is located on the home page. There is a short sequence of inmate profiles that is front and center on the homepage. It is a sequence because the profiles are all listed in a row in order from newest to oldest. They put this sequence here so that users are able to quickly find the most recently updated profiles easily. A sequence is the best organizational structure for this situation because it is the first thing people see and it makes it easy for them to find inmate profiles that are recent and relevant.

Another sequence would be the Prison Slang section. All of the slang terms are organized alphabetically and there is a quick navigation bar at the top to speed up the process of finding the word you are looking for. The words are arranged in a sequence, like a dictionary, because most times the user knows what they are looking for but the only thing they know about it is the spelling of the word.