One of the goals of Dynamicland is to foster the creation of new representations that take advantage of + live across more sensory modalities. Bret calls them modes of representation, but there are similar phrases in learning & psychology literature.
Most representations are haphazardly created (math notation, periodic table of elements, etc) by (often) singular experimentation. Representations are poorly researched and understood (there's no branch of science dedicated to them). If representations were studied more closely, we could get much better at deliberately creating representations that are more humane. When the scientific method is applied, we can then apply the engineering method to create new things from those principles. Bret's talk is a great, accessible overview of these ideas from his context (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agOdP2Bmieg).
To vastly oversimplify things, one way to improve accessibility is to parallelize representations that live in just 1 or 2 sensory modalities to all of our sensory modalities. This way, math notation could be made accessible to & equally powerful to the blind (as it is to those who can see).
I empathize (a little, it would be naive for me to assume I can 100% empathize) with your reaction along the axis of accessibility. What Dynamicland looks like right now isn't what it's going to look like later. Right now, you may see Dynamicland as text boxes but now distributed in a room. In 50 or 100 years, there may be no text AT ALL and you can use the senses available to you to interact with information.
To paint another perspective, I would argue that current computing environments are VERY in-accessible for many people. Laptops and desktops only tap into our visual and symbolic channels, with some tactile feedback (but quite minimal, we know where "X" is on the keyboard b/c of spatial reasoning not b/c the X key gives us specific/unique tactile feedback). Humans who thrive in spatial and kinesthetic channels are debilitated on a modern computer.
> Humans who thrive in spatial and kinesthetic channels are debilitated on a modern computer.
Interesting; this isn't something I know anything about. Is it not feasible to develop alternative hardware and software that adapt our symbolic notations for these people, while still enabling those of us who practically require symbolic notations to collaborate?
In general, we're just not great at processing symbolic representations. We haven't evolved to do so (unlike spatial, visual, auditory, etc senses for matching representations) and have only manipulated symbols for a few hundred years. I mean true abstract symbols, not hieroglyphics or other old symbols that still mapped to language / were still quite visual.
I believe it could be more compelling to figure out how to re-represent things instead of just scaling up symbolic representations. That helps make it more powerful and accessible, for everyone.
A good example here that Bret mentions in his talk is Roman numerals -> Arabic numerals. Or even typing paragraphs of text to Arabic notation for equations (y = x^2 + 1 used to be PAGES of written text). People used to think only super educated elite mathematicians could grasp algebraic ideas. But after they were re-represented, we discovered almost all 8 year olds could grasp the ideas!
Actually, if the tools become real tools (instead of a page representing a layer, some 3d printet thing with a specific look and feel) this could, theoretically, become accessible for the blind. People with moving impairments will have it much harder, though.
Most representations are haphazardly created (math notation, periodic table of elements, etc) by (often) singular experimentation. Representations are poorly researched and understood (there's no branch of science dedicated to them). If representations were studied more closely, we could get much better at deliberately creating representations that are more humane. When the scientific method is applied, we can then apply the engineering method to create new things from those principles. Bret's talk is a great, accessible overview of these ideas from his context (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agOdP2Bmieg).
To vastly oversimplify things, one way to improve accessibility is to parallelize representations that live in just 1 or 2 sensory modalities to all of our sensory modalities. This way, math notation could be made accessible to & equally powerful to the blind (as it is to those who can see).
I empathize (a little, it would be naive for me to assume I can 100% empathize) with your reaction along the axis of accessibility. What Dynamicland looks like right now isn't what it's going to look like later. Right now, you may see Dynamicland as text boxes but now distributed in a room. In 50 or 100 years, there may be no text AT ALL and you can use the senses available to you to interact with information.
To paint another perspective, I would argue that current computing environments are VERY in-accessible for many people. Laptops and desktops only tap into our visual and symbolic channels, with some tactile feedback (but quite minimal, we know where "X" is on the keyboard b/c of spatial reasoning not b/c the X key gives us specific/unique tactile feedback). Humans who thrive in spatial and kinesthetic channels are debilitated on a modern computer.