Screenien

Screenien is a proposed data interchange format intended to describe screen captures and their contextual metadata in a machine-readable form. It is designed to support interoperability across tools used in software testing, digital archiving, accessibility analysis, and quality assurance. The concept aims to standardize how a screenshot, screen recording, or other display capture is described, stored, and referenced, including the surrounding environment in which it was captured.

The core idea of Screenien is a schema that can be serialized in common data formats such as JSON or XML. A typical Screenien document includes elements such as a unique identifier, timestamp, device and display identifiers, resolution, color space, and capture type. It also references media via image or video URIs and may include an integrity hash. Additional fields describe titles, descriptions, tags, and annotations, as well as application state, user actions, and environmental variables to provide full context for the capture. The schema is intended to be extensible through adapters or extensions to accommodate domain-specific metadata.

In practice, Screenien documents may be generated during automated tests, manual validation sessions, or archival workflows. They enable automated indexing and searching by attributes such as resolution, date, software version, and capture method, and they support linkage to defect reports or test cases. Accessibility considerations, including alternative text and color profile information, can be incorporated to improve usability of captured content.

Status and adoption: As of now, Screenien is not a formal, universally adopted standard. Several experimental projects and prototypes have explored its feasibility, with varying implementations. There is no central standards body governing Screenien, and adoption remains limited to experimental or pilot contexts.

See also: metadata, screenshot, digital preservation, data interchange format.