Fundamental contexts for portable UI

Status: discussion stub — the long-form brainstorm lives on the blog.

Thesis

Portability may not require one mega-spec. Interactive systems share a small set of contexts — structure/semantics, placement, events, 2D (and sometimes 3D) surfaces, zoom/navigation — that can be specified sharply while host chrome stays native.

Sharable vs native

Context Can specify Stays native

Structure / semantics

Domain IR, validation, evaluation

Copy, empty states, delight

Events / interactivity

Controller machines, roles, shortcuts

Platform a11y idioms beyond baselines

Layout / placement

Renderer capability profiles

Theme tokens, density, design-system chrome

2D / 3D presentation

Renderer choice (DOM list vs canvas)

Asset and animation polish

Zoom / navigation

Controller navigation modes per zoom level

Gestures tied to host OS

Zoom is not a skin — it changes the interaction paradigm (focus context, level-of-detail, spatial memory).

Stack (intentional composition)

Prior art tackled parts (Zag, Mitosis, Web Components, XState, node editors, QML, Power Automate). HCI Nerdz prototypes stack them:

  1. Core + controller + renderers + thin wrappers

  2. Same IR for DOM and canvas — see pipeline-composer