Explanation Design Principles Framework Architectural Reference

EXD.Reference:1 - The practice and the problem it solves

Use Explanation Design when someone needs to recover a connection: why an outcome occurred, how a calculation follows, how something works, why one recommendation follows from its grounds, or how a selected arrangement answers its working problem. The governed practice includes preparing an explanation and performing an exchange in which the recipient contributes. Its first useful result is an account whose relevant connection and conditions the recipient can use, or a question identifying the subject contribution still needed.

A formally adequate account can remain difficult for a particular recipient to reconstruct. A fluent, engaging account can expose a relation clearly while leaving that relation unsupported. The practical problem is to connect subject adequacy with recipient-relative recoverability without treating either as proof of the other.

Explanation Design brings together the relevant contributions of formal explanation and empirical craft around one explaining practice. It asks both what warrants a connection and what enables this recipient to recover it for this purpose. Questions about available attention, preparation, access, assistance and later learning determine different design and assurance moves.

A recipient who only needs an already understood fact can use it directly. Creating a scientific explanation, selecting a management policy, securing agreement and establishing a human learning effect may supply or receive explanation work, but each retains its own question and evidence. A satisfying exchange alone settles none of them.

EXD.Reference:2 - The distinctions that change the work

The subject is what the explanation concerns. The question selects the connection sought; the purpose explains why that question matters here. The account supplies the selected claims, relations and conditions. Its expression is the prose, formula, table, diagram, demonstration or combination through which it is available. The recipient interprets and may contribute under particular preparation, access, assistance and effort conditions.

These distinctions support concrete diagnoses:

FPF C.2.8 characterizes extractable structural information for an expressed account, its expressing form and an observer under selected conditions. For an explanation, state which relations the recipient should recover, what counts as a correct reconstruction, and which preparation, operations, help, access and budget matter. The question is “How much of the selected structure can this recipient recover at these conditions?” A useful local answer can identify correctly reconstructed relations and consequential omissions. A numeric comparison needs a justified scale and comparable conditions.

This structural characterization is relational. The same text may make a connection available to an expert and leave a novice unable to reconstruct it at the same effort. Repetition may assist access or retention while introducing no new relation into the account. A familiar relation still belongs to the recoverable structure; recoverability is not a novelty score. For human recipients, attention and memory inform the use conditions and selected outcome.

Formal computational epiplexity has its own model and computational bound. Moving from it to a claim about human understanding requires a justified correspondence. The practical use of C.2.8 here does not require estimating a person’s understanding in bits. Subject warrant, extraction effort, retention, transfer, usefulness and agreement remain separately answerable.

EXD.Reference:3 - Obtain and Carry the Subject Explanation

Recover the account that supports the connection the recipient needs. It may be a mathematical definition and derivation, a causal finding, a Method account or a recommendation’s rationale. Select its relevant claims while preserving answer-changing conditions, alternatives and limits. The minimum useful account can be very short.

For the mean of a finite list, the subject basis is its sum divided by its count. If A has two values, 2 and 4, its sum is 6 and mean is 3. If B has six values of 8, its sum is 48 and mean is 8. Across individuals, the sum is 54 and the count is eight, giving 6.75. Giving the two group means equal weight instead gives 5.5. Both results have explicit rules; the recipient’s task selects which question to answer.

When a required connection lacks a warrant, state what is missing and which subject work could supply it. An unsupported causal claim needs subject inquiry. An unexplained recommendation needs its decisive premises, alternatives and conditions. A missing mathematical step needs its definition or derivation. An explanation can preserve a useful conditional answer while that input is recovered.

Select a supplying practice by the actual subject. Core’s Method-development patterns supply Method content and the rationale for a pattern language. Decision Design supplies recommendation grounds; Decision Design supplies the advising engagement’s conditions. Human Capability Development supplies representative instructional tasks, feedback tied to their criteria and task-specific assistance. Structure-to-Narrative Rendering supplies a connective account when that form is useful. Research Method Practice supplies the research return when a scientific explanation still needs construction or criticism.

The research return can itself produce useful progress. For example, a research exercise can move from a puzzling observation to a question, two or three rival hypotheses, criticism before experiment and an initial report. Select further empirical work when it can change the answer. The RMP methods qualify a research question, choose a design or sufficient-evidence stop, and revise the affected claims. Communicating an available account does not replace these subject contributions.

This entry carries supplied subject results into explanation work. The six constructive Methods address the remaining explanatory difficulties.

EXD.Reference:4 - A worked exchange and its consequential returns

An analyst asks why the average of two branch means, 5.5, was rejected. The branches contain the eight observations just described. The report initially requires the mean across individual observations. Establishing that question with EXD.1 makes the required rule explicit.

The analyst can add and divide but asks why the branch counts matter. EXD.2 constructs the instance: count multiplied by mean recovers each branch sum; add those sums and divide by the total count. EXD.3 can place count, mean and sum together in a table or retain a sufficient prose calculation. The warranted answer is 54/8 = 6.75, with the connection between aggregation and individual weighting exposed.

Now the analyst says, “I want each branch to have equal influence regardless of its size.” EXD.4 treats this as a changed question. EXD.1 revises the selected weighting, and the explanation returns “Mean of branch means, each branch weighted equally: 5.5.” It retains 6.75 for the original question. Whether equal branch influence is the appropriate management policy remains a decision question. The exchange can close with these qualified answers.

A different contribution needs a different move. If the analyst still intends equal weight per individual but divides the sum of the two branch means by two, the question has stayed fixed and the aggregation relation needs repair. If instructional use warrants a learner contribution, EXD.5 asks what the denominator counts, preserves the initial answer, supplies targeted feedback and uses a changed calculation as a retry. If dialogue is unavailable, the written explanation can state both weighting rules and the condition selecting each. An explicit choice need not be delayed by another clarification.

EXD.6 can compare a proposed repair with the current explanation. Adding the missing sum relation changes the account; rearranging those same claims changes form; supplying a hint changes assistance. If the current account already lets the analyst use the distinction, retaining it is a useful result. The case is a worked construction with explicit arithmetic criteria. It supplies no observation about human attention, learning or a population effect.

EXD.Reference:5 - Why these Methods form a useful language

Question formation and dialogue have different first useful results. EXD.1 establishes or revises what needs explaining, including during preparation without a live partner. EXD.4 uses an actual contribution to decide the next explanatory move or a sufficient close. Keeping both direct entries supports prepared text and responsive interaction.

Examples, expression and a recipient’s own explanation also answer different difficulties. EXD.2 makes a claim–instance correspondence and its boundary available. EXD.3 coordinates the contributions of selected forms. EXD.5 asks the recipient to explain a relation, checks that explanation against the task criterion, and guides correction and retry when needed. EXD.6 connects these possible repairs with the value and burden of the receiving use.

Their useful relations do not force a pipeline. An example can expose an ambiguity that returns to EXD.1. A diagram can reveal a missing subject premise. A learner’s response can supply the contribution for EXD.4. Comparison can select a small expression change or end with the incumbent. Several entries can cooperate in one exchange without becoming compulsory steps or establishing that every explanation has six parts.

The conceptual synthesis learns from Narrativization and Narrative Studies: connect source-faithful construction, cognition and production craft through their actual contributions. It does not import a narrative genre requirement. A derivation can explain without becoming a story, and a story’s memorability does not establish the warrant of its explanation.

EXD.Reference:6 - Assurance, limits and practical consequences

Recognize a promising explanation when its question, needed connection and use conditions are explicit enough to choose a constructive move. Assure the particular result with the relevant criterion: verify the mathematical derivation; check whether the recipient reconstructed the selected relation; inspect a recommendation’s actual premises; or examine a later unaided task when that is the claimed outcome.

A smooth paraphrase, positive reaction or correct number can motivate further inquiry without proving the underlying relation was reconstructed. Conversely, a recipient can understand a recommendation and decline it. Preserve the actual response and the assistance used; distinguish demonstrated results from stipulated examples and expected gains.

The principal trade-offs are useful detail against effort, guidance against the independent contribution sought, responsiveness against interruption, and additional comparison against the value of a sufficient incumbent. Prefer the smallest change that addresses a consequential difficulty. Endless elaboration, repeated elicitation after an explicit answer and unsupported certainty all consume the resource the explanation needs.

The examples favor explicit relations, short exchanges and inspectable outcomes. Tacit, affective, embodied and culturally situated understanding may require other forms and criteria. A recipient’s unfamiliar terminology or access needs are conditions for design, rather than evidence of general incapacity. The human–AI profile further limits what can be inferred from an AI’s output.

In practice the language changes where repair is directed and when work stops. It supplies a warranted connection, a worked correspondence, a coordinated expression, an adapted exchange, a supported retry or a justified comparison. It returns a missing subject basis, a changed decision or a stronger assurance question to the work that can answer it.

EXD.Reference:7 - Framework and subject suppliers

FPF remains the external foundational framework. This edition uses the September 2026 current-pattern text available on 9 September 2026, specifically the named units below; it does not redefine FPF’s kinds or import those bodies as Explanation Design members. The public repository is an access and discovery route. A later file date alone does not replace a selected supplying claim.

The source choices above are use-specific. Reopen a receiving claim when its premise or evidence no longer fits, a necessary source becomes unavailable, or the proposed use asks for a stronger effect. Preserve independently supported accounts and explicit conditional answers.

For source qualifications, citation and edition information, see the Sources and Edition Notes.

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