Visual Knowledge Structure Language (VKSL) is a revolutionary new way to convey knowledge. Historically language has progressed from verbal, to textural, and now with VKSL, to structural. This third step is the most important step, because by adding structure to language as we now know it, we end up with a powerful new medium that can barely be called a language anymore.
The Nutshell Vision for VKSL is "A way to transfer knowledge an order of magnitude faster and more accurately". This is compared to today's verbal or textural approaches. VKSL is faster because one looks for just the knowledge needed and because navigation and comprehension is inherently faster. VKSL is more accurate due to the way knowledge is arranged in a far more concise, less ambiguous structure of concepts and relations.
VKSL supports multiple links off of one concept, unlike HTML which supports only one link per textural hyperlink. Thus a VKSL knowledge structure is much closer to how the brain is organized (a huge neural network), leading to many advantages.
VKSL is in development, with the Nutshell Vision nailed down, a narrative written, and initial exploration underway. There have been similar efforts to VKSL. We are deliberately postponing researching them until after we have done significant problem wrestling, so as to avoid slipping into "well worn ruts" as Larry Constantine puts it. Further information is available on development.
VKSL emphasizes five things:
- Visual Comprehension
- Relationships
- Concepts
- Bodies of Knowledge
- Quantitive Aspects
These are strikingly different from current language approaches. Further information is available on Bodies of Knowledge and Quantitative Aspects.
A VKSL document is very visual. It uses rectangles for Concepts and arrows for Relationships. Each Concept has short text identifying the concept, though a concept can also be an image or a Body of Knowledge, which is indicated by a dotted line around some concepts and relationships. Relationship arrows have a verb such as "is" or "has", though this is optional when the meaning is clear or redundant.
The importance of a concept or relationship is shown by line thickness. The thicker the line, the more important the thing is. The order of concepts belonging to another concept can be easily shown by numbers on the relationship arrowheads. Note that importance and order are quantitative aspects. The ability to show importance is the most important subtle technique in VKSL. Relationships have direction and order. Some relations are two way. The ability to show order and relation direction is less important than the ability to show importance.
So far our understanding about VKSL is broken down into three bodies of knowledge. These are Language, Legend and VKSL itself. The Language area deals with the historic progression of language and where VKSL comes in. The Legend area applies to VKSL, and deals with non-obvious notes needed to explain a VKSL document. The VKSL area deals with everything else, and is the largest body of knowledge. The relation between Language and VKSL is that VKSL is structural.
(V1 6/21/00)