Ink and Switch Interactive Homepage

Restoring user agency in a world of locked-down apps.

2025 Essay

Inventing new kinds of spreadsheets for exploring possibility spaces and making better decisions.

Lab Notebook

A local-first access control system with capabilities and end-to-end encryption for secure & trusted collaboration.

Lab Notebook

A research project into dynamic environments for creative work.

Lab Notebook

A self-sustaining system where the entire object memory is shared simultaneously by multiple users.

Lab Notebook

An exploration of how live data and computation can gradually enrich informal travel plans.

2023 Essay

What would be possible if hand-drawn sketches were programmable like spreadsheets?

2022 Essay

A new generation of collaborative software that allows users to retain ownership of their data.

2019 Essay

Several of our research projects have grown into actively developed, widely used tools.

A digital workspace where users can brainstorm, organize, and connect ideas visually using a flexible canvas for notes, sketches, PDFs, and other media.

A library for building collaborative applications that automatically sync changes across devices, even offline, using conflict-free replicated data types (CRDTs).

Our lab owes its existence to the support of a handful of people and organizations. They share our goal: to help scientists, journalists, and creative thinkers do important work with powerful tools that respect their humanity.

Peter van Hardenberg, our current lab director, shares his thoughts on the future of our research.

Our ongoing research is supported by individual and corporate sponsors, and grants from bodies around the world.

Although we are best known for our writing, members of Ink & Switch occasionally present at both industry and academic conferences like the below. For more, see all our past and upcoming appearances.

The whole lab was in Berlin for Local-First Conf, including a special Lab Day where we shared our latest progress on Patchwork, PlayBook, Automerge, and other projects.

Lilith Duncan gave a talk about Backstitch, a plugin for the Godot game engine that adds Automerge-powered version control and collaboration.