Team Members
We have internalized the patterns of print protocols from analog text to such an extent that we hardly recognize them.
Digital text is developing its own unique features, such as hyperlinks, checkboxes, emojis, and markdown, which set it apart from analog text. What other textual primitives are emerging or have yet to be realized?
Our proposal has two parts.
We intend to survey how and why older text protocols are breaking down. For example, we’ve adapted typography and semantic structure to fit digital environments.
We also want to make Iian Neill’s standoff editor and reader open source. Standoff markup is a way to disentangle HTML from text at a basic level. It also allows for the creation of annotations without altering the content. Standoff facilitates semantic separation of concerns, similar to CSS’s role in separating style concerns.
Short summary of your improvement idea
- a way of adding multiple channels of reference on top of a plain text layer.
- a way of encoding “partial contexts” or “fields of reference” along with a communication.
- supports creation of inline entity graphs that are not dependent on external databases.
- provides the reader with tools for querying and visualizing the text/graph nexus.
What is the existing target protocol you are hoping to improve or enhance?
Digital Text. We want to add features that allow access to tacit structures in text.
What is the core idea or insight about potential improvement you want to pursue?
Print encourages a sense of closure a sense that what has been found in the text has been finalized, has reached a state of completion. - Walter Ong
Text has two faces. Most text editors, constrained by a print-centric paradigm, only allow us to see one - the final, polished draft.
There’s an implicit narrative about how one “should” write, which is to write within the lines, adhering to a linear, structured process. Yet as we write, our minds naturally seek out associations, metaphors, and flights of conceptual fancy - what the philosopher William James described as the “big, blooming, buzzing confusion” of our inner mental landscape.
We tuck away these exploratory, meandering thoughts and ideas. The messy, nonlinear process of writing is obscured in favor of presenting a clean, coherent final draft.
For example, here’s what’s running through my head as I’m writing:
We think that words should have backpacks.
Standoff markup allows the writer to make inline entity relations on words, phrases, and even discontinuous highlights. This approach enables previously flat text to gain a semantic topology, offering multiple views of the text and various ways to connect ideas that may not always result from surface-level meaning but rather from personal associations.
What is your discovery methodology for investigating the current state of the target protocol?
UX interviews, case studies, failure states and friction logs.
In what form will you prototype your improvement idea? How will you field-test your improvement idea?
In the browser. A predefined data layer to simulate entity relations. Collaboration with other makers in this space to iterate and improve the ideas.
Who will be able to judge the quality of your output? Ideally name a few suitable judges.
- Vint Cerf
- John Underkoffer
(We still need to confirm with them but they are familiar with the concepts.)
How will you publish and evangelize your improvement idea?
The kit will be on Github, potentially as a plugin. We will publish our research and give talks both virtually and in person.
What is the success vision for your idea?
- Help bridge the gap between text artifacts and intentions.
- Explore the latent space of digital text as it adapts to new interactions, devices and behaviors.
