Creating a Website for Ecommerce; The Sociotechnical Factors Surrounding the Adoption of Blockchain and Web3

This thesis project contains a technical paper and a Science and Technology Studies (STS) research paper. The technical paper is an overview of the process followed when creating a website for a pan supplying company. As websites can provide widely impactful services, for companies and people alike, the project naturally led to an investigation into the future of the World Wide Web. The STS research paper explores the movement towards a possible new future of the web: Web 3.0 (Web3).
The technical paper follows the creation of the website for a company named Penny Plate. Penny Plate is a local supplier of disposable aluminum pans, and the company was looking for an opportunity to refine their online presence. Their old website was defective in areas, and it was hurting the user experience. As a result, my team and I created a functional website for them with the following qualities:
• Modern design
• Simple interface for updating the product information
• Customer convenience features
• Contact Form
To fulfill these requirements, our team investigated other popular sites that served a similar purpose, and we noted shared commonalities in the layouts and features included in the user interfaces. We explored common customer communication channels and researched content management solutions that allowed separation between catalog data and the site’s code. The final deliverable was the new website, which was built using React, a JavaScript library for building dynamic web pages, with UI elements from the Bootstrap library. It is connected to a cloud hosted Headless Content Management System to fetch and organize product information. The website’s “saved items” feature enabled exporting to PDF and the contact page sends emails to the Penny Plate contact email. The website helped solidify the Penny Plate brand’s online presence and provided a platform for easy access to Penny Plate’s products and other business information.
The STS research paper will answer the following question: “what sociotechnical factors surround the adoption of Web 3.0?” The article will analyze the motivations for and achievements of Web3, a recent development aiming to change the way people interact with the internet. Kuhn’s Paradigm Shift Theory will be used to examine motivations and technologies behind the transitions between the three versions of the web. The Technical Fix Theory will be applied to determine the efficacy of the suspected benefits of Web3. It is expected that the research will make clear the motivations and advancements necessary to change a technology like the internet, and it will do a deeper dive into why Web3, specifically, is gaining traction. This deep dive will address both technical and social concerns for Web3. This analysis will be important because this movement aims to change one of the most crucial technologies that the modern world is built on, the internet. Any movement with the potential to radically change society should have their values and contributions analyzed carefully to determine how it will affect progress and people.
Including both of these parts, the technical paper and STS research paper, into the single thesis project provides a more holistic perspective on the web that the projects individually could not provide. The technical paper focuses on current technology used in web development. The STS research paper examines the current sentiment towards the state of the internet, future technologies that the web may use, and the opinions on this new vision for the internet. With this more complete view of the web, people will be able to consider, propose changes to, and participate in the future of our internet.

School of Engineering and Applied Science
Bachelor of Science in Computer Science
Technical Advisor: Daniel Graham
STS Advisor: Bryn Seabrook
Technical Team Members: Peyton Guthrie, Cecilia Rabayda, Annabel Warren