Computing has changed how people communicate. The transmission of news, messages, and ideas is instant. Anyone’s voice can be heard. In fact, access to digital communication technologies such as the Internet is so fundamental to daily life that their disruption by government is condemned by the United Nations Human Rights Council
. But while the technology to distribute our ideas has grown in leaps and bounds, the interfaces have remained largely the same.
Parallel to the development of the internet, researchers like Alan Kay and Douglas Englebart worked to build technology that would empower individuals and enhance cognition. Kay imagined the Dynabook
in the hands of children across the world. Englebart, while best remembered for his “mother of all demos,” was more interested in the ability of computation to augment human intellect . Neal Stephenson wrote speculative fiction that imagined interactive paper that could display videos and interfaces, and books that could teach and respond to their readers .
More recent designs (though still historical by personal computing standards) point to a future where computers are connected and assist people in decision-making and communicating using rich graphics and interactive user interfaces
. While some technologies have seen mainstream adoption, such as Hypertext , unfortunately, many others have not. The most popular publishing platforms, for example WordPress and Medium, choose to prioritize social features and ease-of-use while limiting the ability for authors to communicate using the dynamic features of the web.
In the spirit of previous computer-assisted cognition technologies, a new type of computational communication medium has emerged that leverages active reading techniques to make ideas more accessible to a broad range of people. These interactive articles build on a long history, from Plato
to PHeT to explorable explanations . They have been shown to be more engaging, can help improve recall and learning, and attract broad readership and acclaim, yet we do not know that much about them.
In this work, for the the first time, we connect the dots between interactive articles such as those featured in this journal and publications like The New York Times and the techniques, theories, and empirical evaluations put forth by academic researchers across the fields of education, human-computer interaction, information visualization, and digital journalism. We show how digital designers are operationalizing these ideas to create interactive articles that help boost learning and engagement for their readers compared to static alternatives.
Research Dissemination Journalism Education Policy and Decision Making
Conducting novel research requires deep understanding and expertise in a specific area. Once achieved, researchers continue contributing new knowledge for future researchers to use and build upon. Over time, this consistent addition of new knowledge can build up, contributing to what some have called research debt. Not everyone is an expert in every field, and it can be easy to lose perspective and forget the bigger picture. Yet research should be understood by many. Interactive articles can be used to distill the latest progress in various research fields and make their methods and results accessible and understandable to a broader audience.