Designing from meaning
Most software starts from what people do on a screen. OS iXanagi starts from what a thing means to the business.
Documentation28 pages
Contents4 chapters
Change the first question
A customer's question is usually filed as a "ticket". A proposal is a "document"; a delivery is a "status update". Each name comes from how a screen handles the thing.
In OS iXanagi, a question is a signal of demand, a proposal is a commitment, and a delivery is a commitment fulfilled. This is not wordplay. It decides whether every app can recognize the thing as the same thing.
An app is a lens on meaning
The body of meaning — products, customers, knowledge, strategy — lives in one layer that every app shares. Each app is a lens that looks at that layer from the angle of its own work.
An explanation corrected in one app is read from the same body by the others. To publish on the website, a site copy may be made from the brand's meaning, but there is only one body.
The order of design
When we build something new, we decide in this order:
- Which of the seven Core Domains the work belongs to
- What things it deals with
- How those things relate to each other
- What operations are needed
- Last, the screens
We do not start from screens because the meaning would be rebuilt every time a screen changed. Once the meaning is settled, the screens can be redone as often as needed.
What changes when you build on meaning
- Correct an explanation, and the plans and per-channel drafts that use it are marked for review. The text is not rewritten behind your back; a person decides whether to change it.
- The AI is given only knowledge that is current and active. When it answers from company knowledge, you can trace the material it came from.
- Activating an app for your company involves no migration. The meaning is already there.