Date: Tue, 1 Apr 2014 12:46:51 -0700
From: Bret Victor
Subject: thinking about a "Explorable Explanations" workshop/conference/something
I was looking this the other day:

http://ncase.github.io/sight-and-light/

and thinking about how there don't seem to be many people making these sorts of things yet, and we ought to bring all of them into the lab for a day or two, and have them talk to each other or something.

I don't know of a good term for "this sort of thing".  It's not "data visualization".  It's more like "system visualization".  Explaining the design of a system or process via "show-and-tell" narrated visualizations of the system's behavior.  Where the reader isn't limited to adjusting the view, but can interactively adjust the parameters of the simulation.  For now, I'll call them "explorable explanations", because of http://worrydream.com/ExplorableExplanations/

These are the sorts of things I have in mind:

http://www.redblobgames.com/pathfinding/tower-defense/
http://www.redblobgames.com/articles/visibility/
http://acko.net/blog/animate-your-way-to-glory/
http://www.levitylab.com/blog/2011/06/geology-an-interactive-primer/
http://classes.soe.ucsc.edu/cmps179/Spring13/#final-projects
http://worrydream.com/LadderOfAbstraction/
http://worrydream.com/ScientificCommunicationAsSequentialArt/

The goals of the workshop might be:

- show-and-tell; trade ideas and techniques
- ideas for pushing the form further
- ideas for tools for authoring these things
- envision a world where all "explanatory technical material" (such as textbooks, scientific papers, and technical articles) are presented in this form, and think about what conditions would be necessary for such a cultural change

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What do you think?  

-Bret