Experience Notation (.expn)

Experience Notation is a structured language for modelling user journeys, decisions, personas, and interactions in a readable and simulation-ready format. It is designed for LLM prompting, human authoring, and machine parsing. Originally developed as part of the Demoscope.ai platform — a commercial service for synthetic user feedback — it is now available as an open-source specification.

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Key Concepts

Experience Notation is:

• Readable — Uses indentation and labels to keep files accessible.
• Structured — Validates via both EBNF and JSON Schema.
• Expressive — Captures emotional context, UI interaction, branching.
• Modular — Supports external references and journey composition.
• LLM-compatible — Can be generated, simulated, and adapted through prompts.

Explore the full Glossary for key terms.

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Example

Journey: simple-onboarding
Title: Simple Onboarding Journey
Personas:
  Persona A: New User
    Traits: { tech_savvy=false }
    Experience: Curious and slightly anxious
Events:
  Event 1: App Launch
    Step 1:
      User: Persona A
      Action: Opens the mobile app
      UI-Element: Splash screen
      Tag: entry
  Event 2: Sign-Up
    Step 1:
      User: Persona A
      Action: Enters email and password
      UI-Element: Registration form
    Step 2:
      User: Persona A
      Action: Taps "Create Account"
      UI-Element: Call-to-action button
      Tag: confirmation

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Learn More

• Full documentation at: https://experience-notation.com
• Getting started: Getting Started Guide
• Browse examples: examples/
• Learn to validate: Validation Guide
• Use with LLMs: AI Integration

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In Use

Experience Notation powers Demoscope.ai, a commercial platform for synthetic user feedback and behavioural simulation. .expn files are used to structure multi-step journeys and guide persona interactions in production environments.

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Grammar & Schema

• EBNF Syntax
• JSON Schema

You can validate .expn files using:

• $schema field in supported editors
• ajv-cli for JSON structure validation
• Experimental tools (see roadmap)

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Roadmap

• Bidirectional JSON ↔ .expn parser
• EBNF validation and linting tool
• Web-based editor / playground
• SDKs and developer tools

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Licence

The Experience Notation DSL and its accompanying JSON Schema are released under the Apache 2.0 Licence.

See the LICENSE file for the full text.

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Support & Collaboration

Experience Notation was authored by Nikolaos Maniatis and is maintained by The Cato Bot Company Limited as part of the Context Notation initiative.

For questions about:

• Using Experience Notation in your projects
• Contributing to development
• Research collaborations
• Commercial support options

Feel free to reach out:

📧 [email protected]
💬 GitHub Discussions
🌐 context-notation.com

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Citation

If you use Experience Notation in academic work, please cite:

Nikolaos Maniatis. Experience Notation Schema (v1.1). https://schemas.experience-notation.com/[email protected] Available at: https://github.com/context-notation/experience-notation Licensed under Apache 2.0. Maintained by The Cato Bot Company Limited.

APA: Maniatis, N. (2025). Experience Notation Schema (v1.1). https://github.com/context-notation/experience-notation