Modeling — Understanding Workbench

Status: Architecture defined, Object Modeler deployed, core skills in design

Repos: object-modeler

Design doc: modeling-capability-architecture.md

Source Frameworks

Core Skills

Model Types & Tools

Modeling

The Workbench guides people through describing a problem, surfacing its parts and relationships through conversation, and building visual models they can see, react to, and refine. Rather than one monolithic agent, modeling is composed of independent, testable core skills.

Source Frameworks

Clear Models Framework

Elmendorf / TUG — A tested workshop process for making the complex clear. Models are for play, not permanence. Value is in the doing.

Model Program Intent Audience Aspects Abstraction Considerations Context Priming Critique

OO Analysis / Clean Questioning

TUG — Surfacing parts and relationships using clean language questions designed to minimize the questioner's contamination.

Clean Questions Model Primitives Things Has-A Is-A-Kind-Of Named Relationships Actors/Roles Boundaries

frameworks inform ↓

Core Skills — Independent, Composable

Clean Questioning

Conversational skill using clean language to surface parts and relationships without contaminating the person's understanding.

Echo/parrot Deepening Broadening Vocab conflicts

Model Program Facilitation

Framing skill that scopes what to model before starting. Intent → Audience → Aspects → Abstraction as natural conversation.

Intent Audience Aspects Drift detection

Visual Model Rendering

Renders parts and relationships as simple, intentionally provisional visual primitives. Updates incrementally as conversation progresses.

Boxes/shapes Containment Hierarchies Incremental

skills compose into ↓

Modeling Session Flow

1. Frame (Model Program) → 2. Question (Clean Language) → 3. Render (Visual) → 4. React & Correct → 5. Continue & Refine ↺

Model Types

Object Models

Entities, attributes, relationships, hierarchies

Journey Maps

Temporal sequences, touchpoints, experience

Stakeholder Maps

Actor networks, interests, power dynamics

Org Models

Authority, responsibility, information flow

Design Principles

Models are for play. Everything rendered should invite interaction, not shut it down.

Intent before method. Always establish what you're trying to understand first.

Limit aspects for clarity. Fewer dimensions = clearer model. More aspects go in separate models.

The person's language is truth. Use their words. Surface vocabulary conflicts rather than imposing consistency.

Untitleable = too much. If you can't title the model, it's trying to do too many things.

Making visible is the point. The value isn't the artifact — it's the understanding from making it.

Active Tools

UOM Tool — Visual Object Modeling

A visual object modeling tool for Information Architecture. UML-standard notation with classes, attributes, and relationships (Has-A, Is-A). Fork-and-panel views, schema definitions, multiple model presets. 18 commits, actively deployed.

Open live tool ↗

Cross-cutting: Clean Questioning serves Library (Reference Diagnostic), Research Facilitation, and any inquiry context · Model Program Facilitation informs the Guide and Library Organizer · Visual Rendering supports Wayfinding and Communication · Agency Dial defaults toward Scaffold — the value of modeling is in the cognitive work

Modeling — Capability Architecture

UOM Tool — Visual Object Modeling