Responding to the Reader

 There were several things from the readings this week that blew my mind. I am still thinking about the idea of reactive texts proposed by Bret Victor . If you haven't checked out the link, it is worth your time to see how it works. The idea of serving a text that responds to the "active reader" is really cool and requires a whole new approach toward composition. Victor explains his purpose in creating explorable explanations writing,

"Do our reading environments encourage active reading? Or do they utterly oppose it? A typical reading tool, such as a book or website, displays the author's argument, and nothing else. The reader's line of thought remains internal and invisible, vague and speculative. We form questions, but can't answer them. We consider alternatives, but can't explore them. We question assumptions, but can't verify them. And so, in the end, we blindly trust, or blindly don't, and we miss the deep understanding that comes from dialogue and exploration.

Explorable Explanations is my umbrella project for ideas that enable and encourage truly active reading. The goal is to change people's relationship with text. People currently think of text as information to be consumed. I want text to be used as an environment to think in."

Explorable Explanations is a cool learning tool and does change the composition landscape but it also responds to a theme from the readings this week. Many of the readings highlighted the importance of building your enhanced ebook to respond to the demands of an "active reader" and not just throwing in features because the device can do them. Peter Meyers explained the importance of responding to the readers needs with these digital enhancements writing, "Most ebook experiments do a better job of showing off our devices rather than solving specific reader problems. We get video extras, web links, piped in Twitter feeds. Problem is, these “enhancements” often answer the wrong question: what can we add? In an age of Information Overload, readers don’t need more; they need help."

As we prepare to create our own enhanced ebooks, it will be important to assess what needs our books respond to with our readers. Reviewing the 5 different areas Meyers suggests in his article, What Readers Need vs What Devices Can Do, is a good place to start our evaluation of enhancements for our ebooks.