the big conversation: open annotation in manuscripts and the web
DESCRIPTION
Context and snapshot of progress with open annotation in April 2014. Talk delivered to Information Design Conference, London, UK, on 8 April 2014TRANSCRIPT
The big conversationDesigning for open annotation | Mark Barratt
Annotation as conversation
About annotationManuscript and printThe web and e-paper: groping towards conversations
First attempts at a design language for open annotation
Ways forward
About annotation
Footnote: endnote, referenceGloss: explanation, translationAside: sidebar, call-out, digressionCorrections and comments on drafts
Comments by readersStudy notes
Manuscript as semi-public conversation: Aristotle’s Physics 1280-ish
Print narrows the scope
From conversation to reference
New forms for new media
Proof corrections and commentsWordAcrobatPaper plus!
Web-page comment streams?
Web documents copied print annotation role and design
Doing it well: write an app
Notes added by readers
Need toMark text while readingAdd a noteSave the note for laterSpot the note location while reading and read it
Open annotation adds user needsNeed toMark text while readingAdd a noteSave the note for laterSpot the note location while reading and read it
Sort/search/select notesSee who wrote the note, find out about them
Respond to it
Public or open annotation
RequiresStandards: semantics (what sort of note is this?)
Standards: semantics (what’s this in the note?)
Standards: who wrote this?Standards: where is the doc for this annotation?
Standards: where is the annotation in the doc?
Standards: where are all the notes for this doc?
None of this is properly solved
You see the annotation but it isn’t really there
And the stylesheet may come fromThe browser itselfA browser annotation plug-inThe annotation serverThe document being annotatedOh, and the doc might be a web page, a PDF document, or an epub
This may be a problem for the designer
And for the reader
But it’s a kind of grail so…
Annotation on screen: visual issuesSmall viewportArbitrary viewport proportionLow resolution consequences (typographic articulation)
Arbitrary colour gamut (eg mono e-ink)
BUT interactivity
Hypothes.is
looking at previous failuresopen standardsno modification of source textdealing with consequences: reputation, identity, special needs of communities
high ambition, high risk
Different communities have different needs
Hypothes.is establishing domain needs of, e.g.Legal professionJournalismOpen peer review for scholarly publications
Mathematics
…and working towards ways of uniting them in technical standards and design approaches.
Open annotation will change the way we work with documents
Information designers have the skills to contribute
So contribute
Get engaged
W3C open annotation community group http://www.w3.org/community/openannotation/
Hypothes.is https://hypothes.is/ Open Knowledge Foundation http://okfn.org/ . Annotation
central to their work, eg Open Shakespeare (http://www.opensourceshakespeare.org/ ), Textus (http://textusproject.org/ ). Created Annotator plug-in http://annotatorjs.org/
Annotation software and browser plug-in https://github.com/hypothesis
epub e-books in the browser, supporting open annotation https://github.com/futurepress/epub.js
Open Annotation ontology, a start on semantic standards. Needs work. http://www.openannotation.org/spec/core/