Knowledge Navigation · Graph Interface · Safari · Research Tools
A spatial interface for browsing connected documents — built directly into Safari. Trails makes research visible as a map, not a history list.
Trails prototype — visual research paths, document clusters, and spatial recall in Safari
The Gap
“They could collect a lot of information, but had trouble staying organized or remembering how everything connected.”
Browsers treat every page as isolated. You open a tab, read it, open another.
The relationship between them — why you opened it, what it led to, what cluster
of thinking it belongs to — disappears the moment you close it.
Trails makes the research process spatially visible.
Documents appear as nodes. Navigation leaves a trail. Related pages cluster together.
You can see where you've been, why you went there, and how ideas connect — without
leaving the browser or rebuilding context from memory.
Three Decisions
Each decision was about resisting the impulse to build a new tool and instead adding spatial intelligence to the tool researchers already use.
01
Build inside Safari, not alongside it
“Native context over separate app.”
A Safari extension means the interface lives where the research happens. No export, no copy-paste, no tab switching to a separate tool. The map builds itself as you browse.
Rejected: A standalone app would require users to consciously move between browsing and organizing — the friction that already causes research to go unsaved.
02
Trails, not folders
“Navigation as structure.”
The path you take through research is itself meaningful. Trails records the sequence and the connections — how you got from one idea to another. That path is a form of knowledge that folders erase.
Rejected: Bookmark folders and read-later lists require manual curation that breaks the research flow. The act of organizing shouldn't interrupt the act of thinking.
03
Hover previews to support memory
“Context without reopening.”
Hovering a node in the trail shows a snapshot of the page — enough to recall its relevance without reopening it. Spatial memory plus visual cues means you stay oriented across long research sessions.
Rejected: Relying on page titles alone fails once you've read more than ten pages — titles compress too much, context collapses.
“It felt like I was visually mapping my thoughts. I didn’t lose track of where I was or what connected to what.”
User testing feedback — MFA Design researcher
Why this connects to AI product design in 2026. Trails was built before AI memory became a product category. The problem it solved — how do you make a thinking process legible over time? — is now central to every AI assistant, notebook, and research tool being built. The graph interface, the trail as a first-class object, the spatial recall model: these are patterns that matter more now, not less.