Specificade

Specificade is a term used in information design and AI prompt engineering to denote a structured approach for eliciting and enforcing high levels of specificity in data capture and generated responses. The concept aims to decompose a user request into clearly defined attributes, constraints, and context to reduce ambiguity for both people and machines.

The term’s origins are informal; it appears in late-2010s discussions among UX researchers and AI developers and has functioned more as a descriptive concept than as a formal standard. In practice, Specificade is discussed as a methodology rather than a single, shared protocol.

Key components described in practice include an attribute schema that lists mandatory fields and allowed values, a context module that records situational qualifiers, a validation layer that checks for completeness and coherence, and a response controller that enforces constraints in outputs. Together, these elements are intended to improve predictability and interoperability across systems that rely on precise input and output.

Applications cited include guiding natural language interfaces to solicit precise information, annotating data for knowledge graphs and databases, and constraining content generation to specified formats or domains. Some practitioners view Specificade as a useful discipline for prompt engineering, data governance, and structured data workflows.

Critics warn that overemphasizing specificity can raise upfront workload and reduce flexibility, while advocates suggest modular, evolving schemas can mitigate these issues. See also: data annotation, prompt engineering, structured data, ontology, knowledge graph.