Narratological work and annotation

The term narratology describes an interdisciplinary method used in humanities, cultural studies and social science, which investigates the form of narrative texts. Especially in textual studies the so called annotation is an important part of narratological work processes. In a simple definition the term annotation describes highlighting passages in texts in order to refer back to key phrases easily, or add marginalia to aid studying.

 

Collaborative Documentation of Text Analysis and Visualization (CDTAV)

In collaboration with University of Applied Sciences Potsdam and the narratology department of University of Hamburg, we – a team of four UI & UX designers – are developing a new tool for narratological scientists working in textual studies.

 

Identifying needs

There are several annotation tools for scientific research. After hosting some workshops in cooperation with University of Hamburg, we investigated and analyzed individual workflows, thinking processes and specific needs while working with some of the annotation programs.

After evaluating the workshop’s results the main problem got more clear: the tools were too complex, had no structured and intuitive software interface, missed specific functions which might support the user’s workflow and had no further options for documenting work processes or even collaborating in teams. The consequence after trying those tools: Most of the participating narratological scientists got frustrated and said that they intended to go back to their analog workflows they used before.

 

Summarized there is a need for a user-friendly tool which supports individual workflows of narratological scientist, while enabling collaborative work within a group of researchers. Furthermore they require a thorough documentation of the entire scientific analysis process.

 

CDTAV – Current tasks

We are currently working on specific interface aspects to achieve an intuitive documentation process and its visual representation.