Panes and the ladder
Every lens in the platform descends the same three steps: the landscape you scan, the subject you focus, and the proof behind that subject.
The panel beside an answer is not a summary card. It is an instrument you descend, and every lens in the platform descends the same three steps. Learn the grammar once and every surface reads the same way.
What you'll learn
- The three depths, and what sits at each one
- What each lens calls its own layers
- How a panel and a page are the same thing in two places
The three depths
| Depth | What it is | What you do there |
|---|---|---|
| Landscape | Everything in this lens at once | Scan, sort, spot the outlier |
| Subject | One row, opened | Understand one thing properly |
| Proof | The evidence under that subject | Check it yourself, or quote it |
The descent is always downward and always reversible. A rail at the top of the panel shows where you are and takes you back up.
What each lens calls its layers
| Lens | Landscape | Subject | Proof |
|---|---|---|---|
| Prompts | Topics | Topic | The answers |
| Competitors | Landscape | Rival | The answers naming them |
| Changes | Ledger | Review | Hosted inside the Review |
| Sources | Citation graph | Source | The citing answers |
| Intelligence | Board | Simulation | The record behind it |
| Trace | AI referrals | One trail | The visit and the answer it came from |
| Industry Pulse | The benchmark | ||
| Readiness | Site grade |
Two lenses have only a landscape today, and the platform says so rather than drawing a rail that goes nowhere. Changes hosts its proof inside the Review, because the journey, the assertions and our own fetch record are sections of the change, not a separate page.
Two hosts, one instrument
Every panel has a page. The arrow in the panel's corner opens the full-page version of exactly what you are looking at, at exactly the depth you reached, and the Track and Analyse menus in the top bar are links to those same pages.
This is why the same URL works in both places. A panel's address is a ?view= parameter on the assistant,
so you can copy a link to a panel, paste it to a colleague, and they land on the same view. The full page
takes its own parameter, for example a source domain or a change id, and lands on the same depth.
Pin a panel to keep it open while you keep asking. A pinned panel stays put while new answers arrive beside it, which is how you compare two things without losing the first.
The other ladder
There is a second ladder in the product and it is worth not confusing them:
- This ladder is about depth. How far into a lens you have descended.
- The six-level stack is about maturity. How far your own site and your own loop have progressed, from Access through to Proof.
The Readiness lens is where they meet: its landscape is the maturity ladder.
Try this in Outercite
Ask the assistant "Which pages are the engines citing me on?", then click one source to descend to it, then open the arrow to see the same view as a full page.
Related
The lenses
One article per lens, each one following this grammar.
Shortcuts and navigation
Getting to a lens by keyboard, by menu, or by asking.
The six-level stack
The maturity ladder: Access, Structure, Authority, Citations, Change, Proof.
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