[I wrote this up in Writely this afternoon, and it’s proven to be a good consolidation of the various thoughts I’ve had. Feel free to leave comments. As for why it’s a “proposal,” I have to get the project approved by the advisory committee in order to be able to work on it 20 hours a week and get paid for it, so this is what I’m submitting. –Ben]

Beyond Proposal

In a nutshell, Beyond is a cross-platform, open, free genealogy record manager that makes genealogy research easy and fun.

Principle: You should be able to access your genealogy anywhere in the world.

Solution: Through the “Genealogy Anywhere” model, you can. Upload your data to a server running Beyond, and from then on you’ll be able to get to your genealogy from any computer in the world using the web client. What if you want to work on your genealogy midflight en route to Europe? Before you leave, let Beyond automatically download your data to your laptop (using the desktop client). Make whatever changes you want. When you get off the plane and find a spot with Internet access, plug in and Beyond will take care of synchronizing your new changes with the server. No matter where you are in the world, you can get to your latest data. No more hassles with flash drives or e-mailing files or (heaven forbid) floppies. You’ll also be able to work purely offline if you want, like PAF.

• Server/client model, with offline local file access available instead
• Web client
• Desktop clients for Mac OS X, Linux, and Windows
• Compatible with PAF 5, 4.x, 2.3.1, GEDCOM, and a variety of other formats
• Host your genealogy on your own server (like WordPress)
• Open source

Examples of the “access anywhere” idea include Gmail/Hotmail/Yahoo (e-mail), Google Calendar (planner), del.icio.us (bookmarks), Flickr (photo storage), Writely (word processing), Backpack (to-do lists and much more), LibraryThing (book collections).

Principle: Genealogy should be easy for everyone.

Solution: Genealogy should not be as hard and irksome as filing your taxes, and yet that is where the current state of record managers remains. But not for long. Beyond will make genealogy easy and fun, through an intuitive interface designed to get rid of all irritations. It just works. Both new genealogists and expert researchers alike will find Beyond a pleasure to work with, because it helps them get things done. And there won’t be excess baggage that gets in the way. Simplicity is beauty, and beauty makes the user experience joyful and satisfying.

• User-friendly
• Simple
• Easy navigation
• Powerful search
• Internationalization in dozens of languages
• Unlimited undo — no more worries about accidentally deleting something

Examples of user-friendliness: Wordpress (blogging).

Principle: Collaboration using genealogy software should be easy and painless.

Solution: One of the greatest advantages of the Internet is the capability it has brought us for collaboration, and genealogy is an area where collaboration can make miracles happen. E-mailing files back and forth and merging the changes by hand is not the best way to bring about those miracles, however. Through its revision control system, Beyond will make collaboration a piece of cake. You can give access to your data to someone else (or even to just part of your tree), and you’ll easily be able to see any changes they make and decide whether to approve them. Merging has never been easier. And once you’ve got something you like, you’ll be able to publish it easily, either through a live link to a web server (dynamically updated) or PDF. If you’re working on a book, Beyond will let you select parts of your tree and save them as EPS diagrams that you can then insert directly into your Word document. Finally, Beyond will interface with other parts of the web, letting you work with Flickr photostreams, sets of del.icio.us bookmarks, WeRelate pages, and even Family Tree. No man (or woman) is an island.

• Revision control for managing changes
• Publishing via live link
• Publishing via PDF
• EPS diagrams
• Interaction with other websites (Flickr, del.icio.us, WeRelate, etc.)

Examples of revision control: Subversion, CVS, darcs.

Principle: Genealogy software should encourage good research.

Solution: Without evidence to back them up, genealogical conclusions oft remain at the level of mere speculation. Beyond makes citing that evidence easy, avoiding the tedious monotony that often accompanies sources. You can rank information sources according to their credibility — as the source of a birth date, for example, a birth certificate holds more credibility than a death certificate for the same person, because the former was made at the time of birth, whereas the death certificate was often made seventy or eighty years later. Incorporating information like this into the evidence system makes it easy for you to come back to your conclusions later on and see why you made them. Beyond also has a built-in research “notebook,” allowing you to easily classify your notes and log your searches. Finally, non-destructive what-if scenarios let you move things around without actually harming your data, seeing what alternate conclusions would lead to. And there will also be tags (ala Flickr), parallel timelines, and much more.

• Weighted evidence system
• Research notebook/log
• What-if scenarios
• Tags
• Parallel timelines

Examples: Backpack (research notebook), Flickr/del.icio.us (tags)

Posted in Beyond, Design
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