UI is not really my area, so I’ll leave that to others except to say:
Thanks for all the comments! I think that more work into the UI is going to be important, and critical voices are helpful for this.
In development a lot of this lived in workflowy, and it was noticeably worse to use than now. (But perhaps there was a different way of setting it up which would have worked better.)
On strategy, the general idea is not that everyone reads the whole thing, but that people can explore local areas they’re interested in. This should avoid the need to cut anything off into a glossary (although the guidance for how to start engaging could improve; I agree that idealized ethical decision making content is irrelevant for most users so should probably be less prominent). This should let people engage with and become experts on aspects of EA-relevant research and have a rough idea of how it fits in with other areas, without needing to be expert on those other areas. One of the important reasons for laying it out in an approximately-logical tree was that we think this could help people to spot where there are gaps in the research that haven’t been noticed.
I agree that idealized ethical decision making content is irrelevant for most users so should probably be less prominent
I feel like one of the key advantages of the tree structure is that it’s already not too prominent. I can see the motivations for demoting it even further, but it does feel like it’s in the right place with respect to the overall structure of the concepts, and it’s hard to see how to de-emphasise it without losing that.
On strategy, the general idea is not that everyone reads the whole thing, but that people can explore local areas they’re interested in. This should avoid the need to cut anything off into a glossary (although the guidance for how to start engaging could improve; I agree that idealized ethical decision making content is irrelevant for most users so should probably be less prominent).
Despite the treelike structure, omitting boring or esoteric topics still seems key for keeping the reader’s trust and attention.
Wanting to lay things out logically also shouldn’t prevent focusing more on areas that are more important.
UI is not really my area, so I’ll leave that to others except to say:
Thanks for all the comments! I think that more work into the UI is going to be important, and critical voices are helpful for this.
In development a lot of this lived in workflowy, and it was noticeably worse to use than now. (But perhaps there was a different way of setting it up which would have worked better.)
On strategy, the general idea is not that everyone reads the whole thing, but that people can explore local areas they’re interested in. This should avoid the need to cut anything off into a glossary (although the guidance for how to start engaging could improve; I agree that idealized ethical decision making content is irrelevant for most users so should probably be less prominent). This should let people engage with and become experts on aspects of EA-relevant research and have a rough idea of how it fits in with other areas, without needing to be expert on those other areas. One of the important reasons for laying it out in an approximately-logical tree was that we think this could help people to spot where there are gaps in the research that haven’t been noticed.
I feel like one of the key advantages of the tree structure is that it’s already not too prominent. I can see the motivations for demoting it even further, but it does feel like it’s in the right place with respect to the overall structure of the concepts, and it’s hard to see how to de-emphasise it without losing that.
Despite the treelike structure, omitting boring or esoteric topics still seems key for keeping the reader’s trust and attention.
Wanting to lay things out logically also shouldn’t prevent focusing more on areas that are more important.