UI/UX design, development, logo design
Organon is my bachelor thesis project, born out of my love for philosophy and logic. The app aims to democratise solid logical reasoning by making logic education accessible and assisting in the development of arguments using valid logical schemas.
Logic is not something most people consciously study, especially when it comes to reasoning and argumentation used daily to draw inferences about the world. I firmly believe education systems should include foundational philosophical disciplines such as logic and epistemology into the mainstream school curriculum, as I think that sharing what we know about reasoning is essential for a prosperous and productive society. All too often our conversations and discussions fall pray to poor reasoning through various fallacies. Resources that teach logic are often hard to come by orprohibitively technical.
Organon is designed to tackle the problem from two angles: the first provides a simple education platform that mimics the success of popular langage self-learning apps. The second is an editor specifically designed to craft arguments, with all the tools and facilitations possible by leveraging computing technology.
The library is the centerpiece for the education oriented portion of the app. It acts as a series of linked articles that can be consulted at need when already familiar with the basics, or read in a structured sequence to act as a course. The library was designed to adopt some popular and proven aspects of existing learning apps, but specifically tailored to make it a non commital experience that can be enjoyed both as a full course or merely for casual referencing. Elements that indicate the completion of exercises on the main screen are subtle for example, and the article sequence is not locked (you don’t have to complete all exercises in one article to unlock the next ones).
Articles contain a structured description of the topic, as well as occasional interactive learning aids. Articles have embedded exercises at the end, for those who want to make sure that they understood the concepts. If all exercises get completed, the article gets a subtle colour tint change on the main screen to reflect this state.
Exercises come in two types. The main ones are simple quizzes with rolling questions. The second type are translation exercises which leverage the Organon composer. Users are tasked to translate natural language arguments to structured arguments in the composer.
The composer allows people to create arguments by leveraging the knowledge acquired from the library. It acts as a sort-of calculator for arguments. The main tab lists all arguments created by the user, with the option to search and create new ones. Every argument can have a title and description.
Users can write in propositions using a combination of natural langage and logic symbols that allow the app to understand the proposition structure. These symbols can be inserted through a bar above the keyboard or by typing in a special tag inline. A full symbolic representation of each proposition is automatically generated as users type. To allow for greater precision, new propositions can be added by dragging the + button to select the insert location.
Conclusions are drawn by writing the name of the inference to be used, and selecting the relevant premises from which to infer. This process is assisted by the app, which highlights propositions compatible with the desired inference. After compatible inferences are selected, the app automatically fills in the appropriate conclusion. The app only allows valid inferences to be drawn, which means that any argument written in Organon is guaranteed to be valid. Validity by itself of course doesn’t guarantee the truth of the conclusion, but it is a very important step in sound argumentation.
Arguments can be shared in many popular formats. Web sharing allows users to generate a link that leads to a read only version of the argument. This format maintains the intractability of the argument, which users can explore using the Organon interface.
Arguments can be edited in numerous ways. The order of propositions can be shifted around, as conclusions drawn from those propositions still maintain a reference to the proposition even if the location changes. Propositions can also be deleted. If propositions are deleted which were used to draw conclusions, those conclusions become premises, to avoid structure collapse. When a proposition is expanded, it highlights the propositions it is derived from, if any. Complex propositions can ambiguous in natural language, which is why logicians like to use symbols where the relationships are clear. The Organon editor visualises propositions in a tree diagram that gets generated as the user types, maintaining a level of legibility that pure symbols don’t have, while still clearly displaying relationships between simple propositions unambiguously.
Editing tree like structures naturally and inline was a non-trivial design challenge. Adding new logical connectives is also hard, if that connection shouldn’t modify the local simple proposition, but a bigger branch. This is why Organon allows users to select branches, either by typing in ":" repeatedly before they add the name of the operator, or by pressing the selection symbol above the keyboard. Much in the same way, symbols can be selected and deleted.
The mark echoes the frame for the logical symbols in the app, as well as the letter o, which the mark substitutes in the logotype. The rectangles on the upper right have two meanings: they resemble pipes in an organ, which has a phonetic resemblance to the name of the app, and they shift the overall shape towards a musical note like shape. This note stands for a "reasoning note", which closely tracks the app concept.
The logotype is cast in Sabon Bold, as a homage to the ancient Greek world where logic was first described and structured. The marriage of the traditional Sabon with the minimalistic mark captures the connection between the new, modern approach on the topic (minimalistic mark) with the centuries old knowledge base and tradition of logic itself.
Aristotele, the father of logic, published his six works on logic in a volume named Organon. "Organon" means instrument in Greek, in this instance, they are thought instruments.
Organon is not merely a simple prototype. It is a 100% code based advanced prototype with complex interactions and a database structure. It was built in Swift (language) using SwiftUI (framework) for Apple platforms. This decision was born out of the need to transcend the limitations of traditional prototyping tools with limited interaction capabilities.
Design is a product focused process that distills what is meaningful from what is possible. I'm a passionate visual designer based in FVG, Italy, focused on UI/UX design and brand identity.
