Week+4

__**Tutorial #4 Wiki Question:**__


 * Analyze the information architecture of the "Story of Stuff" web site, and describe how it has been designed to maximize its content as a teaching tool to deliver complex information. (2 paragraphs)**

The "Story of Stuff" website has been designed in a simplistic yet effective manner that allows visitors to the site an easy navigation to understand the purpose of the site. In looking at the main navigation bar it has eight options that allow for easy distinction from another, this benefits the effectiveness of the site because it allows for a simple navigation to the further complex information. By separating each of the sections of the website using a simple navigation bar they are able to seperate all the movies and information they have to share.

In looking at the movies part of the website, the simple language and black and white sketches in each of the movies allows for any viewer to follow along with the story, and more importantly understand the content. By adding the simple 'doodles' in the videos mixed with the explanations from the narrator the viewers are able to understand the situation at hand. Combining the doodles with animation that simply illustrates the story, like in "Story of Stuff" keeps the viewers attention while at the same time teaching them about the material economy.


 * Describe each stage of the material economy. (6 paragraphs/one stage each paragraph)**

The government and corporation are top of the food chain in the material economy. They are the ones that dictate what happens in the rest of the process. They figure out where to go and get materials to support the material economy. That leads to the extraction of materials.

The extraction of material is where manufacturs look to third world countries for products that they have diminished in their own country. This includes trees for wood, mountains for metals, use the water and kill the animals. This is the stage where the companies acquire the materials they need in order to create their products. However the companies do not care about the third world countries whose homes they are destroying because they have no impact on the profit they get from those materials, meaning they do not add to the value and are therefor unvaluable.

Production comes next, this is where the companies use the products they extracted and produce them using energy and chemicals. This stage not only uses energy to run these power plants but also the energy of the people from the third world countries which the consumers took their product from in the first place. The chemicals are combined with the materials extracted and then produced for the consumers.

Distribution of these products is where producers place the products they have created using energy and chemicals in stores where consumers are able to buy them.

Believing that we, as the consumers, need each of the products is part of the consumption stage. Producers, with the help of advertisements and society, make us believe that we need to continue shopping and we need each product because every year the styles have changed and upgraded from the previous year. Although a change may be minimalistic producers make us feel lesser if we do not have the newest product.

Last stage is the disposal of these products once we are finished with them. Once we go and retrieve that newest gadget or fashion we must get rid of the previous gadget that is no longer useful. To do this we must dispose of the product. Those products then end up in landfills or being burned, in which the chemicals that were placed in the product are released into the air. On the other side the waste that comes from the product you are throwing out must be disposed of on the producers end. This in turn creates a lot of waste for products that we are going to throw out eventually.