Software for language documentation has a long and successful history, but innovation has slowed. In this talk I describe my efforts to provide a path toward reinvigoration of software design for fieldwork, one which leads linguists to think of themselves as participants in designing software for their own workflows. I begin with the description of a simple, extensible model of key aspects of documentary data, and continue by showing how the standardized, familiar, and well-tested technology that powers modern web browsers can serve as the basis for novel interfaces which are nonetheless closely linked to the terminology and descriptive systems in which linguists are trained.