
Explorable Explanations - guiambros
http://explorableexplanations.com/
======
gavinpc
Imagine if you could also _listen_ to these documents, with the author
reading, and the text tracking.

I believe the effect of that one simple addition would amplify their
effectiveness (or at least reach) by an order of magnitude.

After the massive work that their authors put in, the effort of one good read-
through would be marginal. If the above surmise is true, you'd be in power law
territory.

But you'd need a tool to make such an additional channel as trivial as doing
one good read-through.

I'm a little surprised that Bret Victor doesn't do this for his pieces,
considering his emphasis on the use of more human capabilities[0].

Implementing the read-back part is trivial [1], and available on all "modern"
browsers.

Trickier is making the product that lets authors add this channel without
manual tagging. But even this is becoming trivial with speech-to-text API's.

Anyway, I wholly agree with the OP that the first focus of documents in
dynamic media should be improved exposition and, by extension argumentation.

[0] "The Humane Representation of Thought"
[https://vimeo.com/115154289](https://vimeo.com/115154289)

[1] For example, see a crude implementation at
[https://willshake.net/plays/Ado/1.1](https://willshake.net/plays/Ado/1.1)
(click a play arrow in the blue column.) The tracking code is at
[https://willshake.net/about/text_tracking](https://willshake.net/about/text_tracking)

~~~
azeirah
Can you expand on why adding a narrative would amplify the effectiveness of
these explorable explanations by so much? The whole core of explorable
explanations is that you can play with the models yourself to gain insights
and reach conclusions the author may not have come to herself, to me, adding a
narrative would only add to the linearity of the text itself, and therefor
take away some of the "exploration" part

~~~
gavinpc
Glad you asked.

First, consider the difference between two people reading aloud: one is new to
the material, concepts, and associated vocabulary, and the other is the
author. They are reading the same text, but the author's rendition will carry
an _understanding_ of the material that is absent in the other one—and not
found in the text, either. Doesn't that difference comprise relevant
_information_?

Shakespearean actors do this for a living: they stick to the words on the
page, but they add another layer of signals to help unlock them for people.
Technical and expository writing can benefit from this effect as well. Don
Norman argues, for example, that _thinking requires emotion_ , and the voice
is an easy way to add an emotional connection.[0]

So I believe that _any_ document, explorable or otherwise, is amplified by a
human reading, when that human really understands and cares about the
material. And again, for subjects that warrant these specialized
explanations—which tend to require some specialized language—the value added
is particularly great, because it teaches people _how to read_ something new.

Second, I strongly believe in an "all-in" approach for things that you care
about. Clearly these authors care about reaching people, and I think there can
be no doubt that the ability to click "play" brings in listeners who would
never have been readers. And by giving a passive "flow" to the presentation,
it helps sustain many readers who would have given up.

Adding a channel does not "take away" anything. Everything, including the
interactivity and the opportunity for non-linear reading, is still there. (And
note that the recording doesn't have to be linear, anyway.) The authors are
not competing with themselves, they're competing with YouTube and
notifications and other low-friction distractions.

So I'm excited about the OP. I would like _this_ community—mature, passionate
thinkers and teachers—to be the _avant garde_ of future media.

[0] _Emotional Design_ , Don Norman

~~~
pavel_lishin
> _They are reading the same text, but the author 's rendition will carry an
> understanding of the material that is absent in the other one—and not found
> in the text, either. Doesn't that difference comprise relevant information?_

Not to me, as someone who's never run into the material before. There's no
knowledge-carrying particle that's transmitted vocally.

In fact, to me it would be a distraction. I learn better visually; I can stop
reading, and start again, and quickly re-scan what I'd read before to catch
up. It's harder to do that with a recording of a voice, and takes longer.

~~~
gavinpc
> Not to me... to me it would be a distraction

Other people might say the same about the graphics, or the interactions.

The point is that it's not zero-sum—no one loses out by the presence of other
channels, if the document is dynamic. But if some people _do_ benefit, then
there's a value proposition.

------
vinchuco
Instead of isolated examples that happen to use math, would it make sense (or
even be possible) to start a platform for visualization of mathematics?
Something like context-augmented LaTeX. Not a computation engine (like
mathematica or sage), but something closer to a github for math (visualization
and exploration).

Consider how much time it took you to learn Gaussian elimination from a book
or lecture vs how long it would take to see an animated example and then pick
up the details. Or consider how ambiguous mathematic notation can be [1].

So much of mathematics (purportedly the most structured knowledge produced by
humankind) sleeps in mountains of unread journals and inside the brains
(software) of mathematicians that are trained to do these visualizations on
wetware.

It is a feature of math that these aren't hard-coded, as in the abstract one
can conjure up any edits the imagination desires without the complex
implementation details typically required by a computer. And in some cases a
visualization (such as geometry) can be misleading and reduce generality [2].

However, there could be much to be gained by the majority from the
hypothetical platform. Computation packages like mathematica only incidentally
help visualize, as a byproduct.

Take for instance the videos by 3blue1brown [3]. Their appeal (and those in
the parent link) is that they reduce the individual mental overhead and that a
carbon copy of the visual is imprinted in the learner.

There is no punchline to this comment. And I'm certainly not an expert on the
matter. I still find the 'movement' fascinating.

[1] [https://jeremykun.com/2013/02/08/why-there-is-no-
hitchhikers...](https://jeremykun.com/2013/02/08/why-there-is-no-hitchhikers-
guide-to-mathematics-for-programmers/)

[2] [http://math.stackexchange.com/questions/743067/visually-
dece...](http://math.stackexchange.com/questions/743067/visually-deceptive-
proofs-which-are-mathematically-wrong) (not what I had in mind but this will
do)

[3] [http://www.3blue1brown.com](http://www.3blue1brown.com)

~~~
rawnlq
I think mathbox fits what you're describing:

[http://acko.net/files/pres/siggraph-2014-bof/online.html](http://acko.net/files/pres/siggraph-2014-bof/online.html)

[http://acko.net/blog/mathbox2/](http://acko.net/blog/mathbox2/)

~~~
dyarosla
Was just about to link that.

