Scaling Synthesis

Search IconIcon to open search

An ideal decentralized discourse graph would enable people to view information at different levels of granularity through a ZUI

Last updated March 17, 2023

See the ZUI page for a definition.

Imagine being able to jump in and see a birds eye view or get into the weeds. As more and more information enters the decentralized discourse graph, a ZUI becomes a form of compressing and expanding information.

One key point about this is just that it is fun. Look at this screenshot here zooming out in Figma, select massive chunks of items, and move all of it. Then you can zoom in to a specific part of it.

Zooming in and out can provide multiple levels of detail. Notice in the screenshot below how Kindle is able to show you chapter titles and headings more prominently when you zoom out, but when you zoom in you see the text.

Graph views can employ a ZUI, as seen with G6 large clustered graph, to manage an overwhelmingly large amount of nodes. Chris Granger claims that showing more than 15-20 nodes at a time makes a graph view unmanageable. Progressive summarization can provide the basis for different levels of zoom showing different granularities of content.