Yep! I was thinking of your layers idea while making this, but I wanted something that would allow people to drill down in a more targeted way (rather than generally). You're right that it usually ends up being used to define terms, but you can also use it well for elaboration.
I think the ideal solution will be some sort of middle ground, where much of the drilling down will be done by clicking on specific words or sentences, but a slider would allow you to generally expand more text in the article, for things that aren't exactly related to other sentences.
It does take a bit of doing, and drilling down to another layer should also be able to delete text, so the wording flows better.
If you want to talk about this more, feel free to send me an email, I find this problem very interesting.
I would love if it was possible to further drill down into topics (expand further in already expanded parts, up to many levels deep). I long ago hoped to one day try and write an explanation of Shor's algorithm in such a format, with many layers of drill-down available, to cater to readers of different level of knowledge. And also with possibility to collapse back the areas, and bookmark a specific expanded state of the text.
Is collapsing back also allowed, as I asked above? :) didn't see any clear UX indication to that effect :( Not 100% essential (I guess could try adding it as a contribution if the others were there), but how about the bookmarking aspect I also mentioned?
I think the ideal solution will be some sort of middle ground, where much of the drilling down will be done by clicking on specific words or sentences, but a slider would allow you to generally expand more text in the article, for things that aren't exactly related to other sentences.
It does take a bit of doing, and drilling down to another layer should also be able to delete text, so the wording flows better.
If you want to talk about this more, feel free to send me an email, I find this problem very interesting.