[anderspitman]

I think it definitely is more appropriate in some domains than others. Sometimes you can replace 1000 words with a picture, 100 pictures with a video, and 10 videos with an interactive visualization. In that case, it might not actually be more work. I think the problem is that it's very different work, that professors aren't trained for. Again, it's not easy, maybe impossible. But if it could be done...

PS - I see you're at U as well. I work on a datavis team (iobio) in the genetics department (Steph says hi!). If you ever want to meet up I'd be interested in talking more about this.

[rolandog]

Bear in mind that some people are more visual, so I think the interactive visualization should serve as a complement to the 100-1000 words that describe it, not an in-place substitution... (Also, let's not forget about the visually impaired, which need the interface to be accessible).

[anderspitman]

On average, vision is by far the most important sense for a human. Would you reduce the experience for most people in order to help the minority, especially when there already exist so many text-first books?