Make an explanation understandable and usable
Use Explanation Design when someone needs to follow a connection and use it: why an outcome occurred, how a derivation works, or why a recommendation follows from its grounds. Start with the question that is unresolved now.
| Your question | Open | What you can obtain |
|---|---|---|
| Which question should this explanation answer, and has the recipient changed it? | EXD.1 - Establish and Revise What a Recipient Needs Explained | The needed connection, its conditions and intended use, with any subject input still missing. Use an already clear question directly. |
| What supports the connection we are trying to explain? | Obtain and Carry the Subject Explanation | The relevant derivation, causal grounds or recommendation rationale, with its conditions; or the exact question that the subject practice still needs to answer. Retain a useful conditional answer while obtaining that input. |
| How can an example make a rule usable, and where does its correspondence stop? | EXD.2 - Build and Bound an Explanatory Example | A worked instance, its correspondence to the claim and a changed condition that shows the limit of that use. |
| How should the text, formula and diagram work together? | EXD.3 - Coordinate the Expression of an Explanation | One sufficient form or a coordinated combination through which the recipient can follow the selected relation. Obtain a missing premise or derivation before treating its absence as a presentation problem. |
| How should the recipient’s response change the next explanation? | EXD.4 - Co-Construct and Repair an Explanation in Dialogue | A recovered relation, revised question, the premise or choice on which participants disagree, or a request for missing subject input. Close the exchange when the receiving need is met. |
| A learner can repeat the formula but uses the wrong relation. What would help? | EXD.5 - Guide a Recipient’s Own Explanation | The learner’s initial explanation, targeted feedback and another attempt at applying the relation, with the help used for each attempt stated. Use a later task when retention or independent use is the question. |
| Should we keep this explanation or make a particular repair? | EXD.6 - Compare Explanations for the Recipient’s Use and Decide Whether a Repair Is Worthwhile | A repair worth its burden, a qualified provisional choice, or a sufficient explanation to retain for this recipient and use. Distinguish a change of content, expression or assistance when comparing the result. |
The use profiles adapt these methods to instruction, technical and advisory work, and human–AI interaction. For evaluation of instructional material as a whole, use the HCD.18 and HCD.19 entries above. A learner’s later performance, transfer or retention calls for the corresponding HCD method and its conditions.