JeliaWhat it is
waves is a hands-on guide to electromagnetism. It runs from the first spark of an electric charge, through magnetism and Maxwell's equations, to antennas, the whole spectrum, the colour of a sunset and the people who worked it all out. Thirteen chapters in four parts, plus a glossary.
Each chapter does three things. It opens with a short narrated walkthrough: press play, sound on. It has instruments you can drag, slide and break, with the real figures changing as you move them. And it has plain-English reading, with "go deeper" panels for the maths when you want it.
Who it is for
Anyone who has wondered what "2.4 GHz" actually means. No physics background is needed. The site starts where a curious person starts and goes as deep as they choose to follow.
It also works as a reference for people who do know the subject and want a clear way to show it to someone who does not. The Wi-Fi chapter, for example, has a channel map that shows how much of the 2.4 GHz band each channel covers and which neighbours it collides with.
How it started, and how I built it
It began as one page explaining the 2.4 GHz band: the band your Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and microwave oven all share. That page is still there, now Chapter 10, marked as the original. It needed what came before it to make sense, so the rest followed.
- One question per chapter. Each chapter answers a single question and leads into the next, so the order teaches as much as the content.
- Instruments with real numbers. The interactive pieces calculate actual values, such as wavelength, frequency and energy, instead of animating a picture of the idea.
- Narration first. A short walkthrough at the top of each chapter, for people who would rather watch than read.
- Built to be read by everyone. A low-vision typeface designed for legibility, a colour-blind-friendly palette you can switch on, and dark mode. The site remembers your choice.
- Fast and plain underneath. Lightweight pages, served from the same estate as everything else here, monitored and backed up the same way.
What it shows I can do
Most of my working life involves explaining technical things to people who have to make decisions about them. waves is that skill, practised in public on a hard subject.
- Taking a subject that is usually taught with equations and making it understandable without them, then offering the equations for those who want them.
- Building interactive tools that are accurate, not decorative.
- Treating accessibility as part of the design rather than a checklist at the end.
- Growing one good page into a structured body of work without losing the thread.
For a client, the same approach produces training material, internal documentation and runbooks that people actually read.
Questions people ask
Do I need to know any physics?
No. Every chapter starts in plain English. The maths sits in panels you can open or ignore.
Where should I start?
Either at Chapter 1, or at the 2.4 GHz page, which is the one that started it and links back to the chapters it depends on.
Is it accessible?
That was a design goal from the start: a low-vision typeface, a colour-blind-friendly palette switch, and dark mode, all remembered between visits.
Could you build something like this for our team?
Yes. The subject changes; the method does not. Find the questions people actually ask, answer one at a time, and let them try it for themselves.