Information Design: Architecting Digital Resources
The same way that your native language limits the thoughts you can verbalize, the
native form of your information can limit what you express with it. To maximize
the richness, flexibility, and longevity of your work requires:
- A non-proprietary, standard form for your information
- A structure for that information that allows it to be self-descriptive and enforces
consistency of markup
- The ability to create and store metadata (= information about information)
- The ability to create relationships between pieces of information
We specialize in creating single-source publishing solutions that use eXtensible
Markup Language (XML
) to fulfill these requirements. XML is used as a device- and system-independent
means of storing and processing text in digital form. The use of XML as a source
form for your information allows you to describe it for what it is, not how
it is. This single form can be used to create new information sets, share them,
and publish to a variety of media.
Many of our clients are able to use customizations of very evolved XML grammars
such as those maintained by the Text Encoding Initiative (TEI
) consortium. Others with special needs have us create markup grammars for them.
Once familiar with your requirements we architect a grammar suited to them, and
assist you with migrating your existing data sets to XML.
The defining of your document structures and markup grammar is but one (albeit big)
step though. From there thought must be given to the non-textual descriptive information
you may wish to build and maintain. Relationships (links) between documents for
instance, links to outside resources, or perhaps maintenance of taxonomic information.
We help you coalesce your existing digital assets from islands of information into
a whole, and design the means for you to enrich them. Quite often we are able to
use programmatic techniques for building relationships where none previously existed,
or to create new information sets entirely.
XML not being a silver bullet, we also have extensive expertise in the design (or
redesign) of relational database systems in cases where they are more suited to
the job, and at merging the world of the textual with the relational.
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Content Management