@ThatVeryQuinn I have to agree. I've never been a fan of those, but I think their nominal competitors "The Complete Idiot's Guide" are arguably a bit worse in that respect.

@skquinn Much agreed.

And I mean this legitimately: STEM books are the worst about this. The authors don't give a fuck about you if you aren't 100% neurotypical and their type of "Intelligent."

In the design world, most books are actually created to focus on keeping your attention on the focus using common design techniques - particularly, chunking of information and breaking down information that doesn't need to be a paragraph into a graph or other visual to break up the visual rhythm of the book.

And that's where the "Dummies" series of books actually excel. The design is abhorrent from a visual perspective, but they break up the visual rhythm of the book by chunking REALLY WELL.

Like, when I get the chance I'll take a photo of a few of the pages from my design books and compare them to pages from the "Dummies" books and your average O'Reilly book and do like, a fucking breakdown of what I mean.

And furthermore, can we collectively get over the whole "Interactive STEM courses online are For Kids" bullshit? I'm sick to death of only seeing courses that are meant to Entertain the user into wanting to learn more. You've already got me hooked in, just teach me in an accessible way.