The big conversation: open annotation in manuscripts and the web

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/