Build log · Interaction design
“The better part of valour is discretion.”
Quotation: 1 Henry IV, Act 5, Scene 4.
The approved corpus desk now favours a compact, predictable selection line and keeps the analytical work proportional to the passage a reader asks to inspect.
In brief
Sonnet, play, act, scene and passage controls retain equal, stable widths on a wide screen. Explanatory hover tooltips were removed, leaving visible labels and direct status text instead. Longer selections continue to assemble and analyse progressively.
Let the desk be a desk
The corpus desk is deliberately a single, quiet control surface: source first, then the available level of detail. Keeping its controls aligned makes comparison easier to scan and avoids a layout that changes merely because a reader moves between a sonnet and a play.
Visible interface copy now does the explanatory work that tooltips once attempted. That improves touch and keyboard use as well as reading at a glance; detailed context still belongs in the guide and in the project’s methodology, where it can be considered rather than chased by pointer movement.
Keep expensive work deliberate
A longer work can carry much more text than a sonnet. The desk therefore preserves staged assembly and analysis rather than pretending every request is immediate. The comparison view becomes available as results are prepared, while the selection remains legible and the reader stays in control. This continues the principle recorded in the folio-redesign release: an interface can improve scrutiny without altering the analytical boundary.