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Temporal Modelling Project. Johanna Drucker & Bethany Nowviskie University of Virginia. 1. Overview of Project Goals: We are building a tool for making interpretive timelines , or models of the relations among events in time.
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Temporal Modelling Project Johanna Drucker & Bethany Nowviskie University of Virginia
1. Overview of Project Goals: We are building a tool for making interpretive timelines, or models of the relations among events in time. • Practical goal: to create a visual scheme and interactive tool set for the representation of temporal relations in humanities-based or qualitative work. Contrary to traditional methods for representing time and temporal relations, our emphasis is on the subjective, rather than objective, experience of temporality. • Rhetorical goal: to bring visualization into the early content modeling phase of humanities computing projects. We believe this will enrich the design aspects of established scholarly endeavors and make humanities computing methods attractive to individuals without specialized technical skills. Users and Audience: The project is likely to appeal to a broad base of users with professional or personal interests in time, such as teachers and students of history and literature, enthusiasts of genealogy and family history, or anyone interested in a method of visualizing temporal relations.
2. Project Outline: Research, Conceptualization, and Design Phase One (2001/2) included broad interdisciplinary research, a week-long faculty and staff seminar at the University of Virginia, and development of a visual demonstration of our design. Drawing on a wide range of disciplines, we focused on: • classifying existing concepts of time and temporality • elaborating a stable nomenclature from existing literature • establishing requirements for a graphical system and constructing that system with the help of a graphic designer • developing a conceptual scheme that meets technical and conceptual requirements, with the help of KR consultants • creating a demonstration using two case studies from UVA scholars: Yancey Family Papers and the Salem Witch Trials Results of Phase One (still in progress) can be seen at http://www.iath.virginia.edu/time. Phase Two (2002/3): Completion and testing of a working prototype (the composition space) based on the conceptual and visual schemes we have designed. Further research in more narrowly focused areas relevant to our research (diagrammatic reasoning, spatial event modeling, and temporality in narrative). Phase Three (2003/4): Refinement of the composition space and construction of the display space, a method of integrating our model with existing databases for display.
3. Basic Arguments and Issues Our technical approach: • emphasizes the need to create a structural and notational scheme that accommodates subjective perceptions and experiences of time. • creates a crucial distinction between composition space and display modes. • defines the composition space as an interactive tool set to conceptualize temporal relations • suggests this space is a primary epistemological tool that permits design-conscious thinking about temporal relations in advance of content modeling. The humanities content of our project makes several unique contributions. While empirically based research conceives of time as: uni-linear (the "time arrow"), homogenous, and neutral, we assert that temporal relations in humanities data require an expression for: • multiple forward and backward branchings of time sequence (retrospective and prospective or forecasted time); • variable granularites and scales; and • subjectively inflected temporality.
4. Fundamentals of the Concept and Design Scheme The schema underlying our composition space consists of: • objects and elements (line, grid, points, intervals, events, metrics); • relations and structures (order, rupture, multiple granularities, determinacy); • actions and operations (generating timelines, attaching metrics, ordering). The composition space is designed to allow users to create diagrams with a pre-defined set of objects, relations, actions and inflections, as well as to define symbol-sets, color schemes, and various markings tailored to their specific projects or purposes. Our unique contributions to the visual vocabulary of representations of temporality include: • the now-slider: marks a subjective position within a temporal sequence and defines a point of view for the display; • inflections for mood, atmosphere, certainty and uncertainty, determinacy, and other subjective or non-quantifiable characteristics; • “stretchy,” “zoom-able,” or otherwise mutable granularities; • multiple timeline branches backward and forward as alternative orderings and interpretations.
5. Conclusion Our visual interface design for modeling temporal relations in humanities data provides a primary tool for interpretation and representation. The tool is being designed within the context of a research institution, to meet the needs of humanities scholars. However, we believe the work will have applicability and appeal to a broader user group. Our approach to the project departs from conventional humanities computing practices in which visualization and interface design are generally marginalized as final steps. Demonstrations of specific case studies and the development of a usable composition space will allow us to test this concept with a range of users. All metaphors and templates for visualization of temporal relations developed for Phase One will be usable in Phases Two and Three when our focus shifts to the display of existing databases as well as initial interpretation and content modeling. The Temporal Modelling Project is generating considerable interest among the scholarly community here at the University of Virginia. In the next phases, we intend to publish and present our work-in progress and conclusions within a number of professional contexts.
