Documentation for DIY tasks serve as codified project knowledge and help makers reach new
understandings and appreciations for the artifact. Engaging in reflective processes using the
documentation can be challenging when it comes to physical objects as the documentation and
the artifact exist separately.
On the one hand, we have the physical object. By examining the physical object, we typically
understand some of the object's qualities, such as its materials, weight, or fabrication
techniques. But we do not get a rationale of the decision that went into the building
of the object.
On the other hand, we have their documentations. These documentations usually contain more
details on the object, such as the inspiration
behind it or how it was built. However, documentation
on their own does not portray the full image of what the final object is.
In this paper, we ask if embedding their documentation
onto the object being made will promote self-reflection
and whether this facilitates a deeper understanding
of the object and its design process.
Our assumption is that by embedding their documentation information into the object
itself, we could gain in-situ access to the information, facilitating easier reflection
for end-users of the documentation.
From past literature, such as process products and spin, we know researchers have developed
systems to embed data into physical objects to enrich the objects. These projects demonstrate
how this embedding can be done through different fabrication techniques and how it can create
a better link of communication between the maker of the object and its users. However,
these projects have not focused on documentation
and how people might organize and share documentation
information in their build objects.
We conducted a preliminary study where we
examined four popular examples of online documentation
and interviewed and brainstormed ideas with hobbyists and professional makers. From that,
we gathered several design guidelines for developing a prototype system.
We introduced Documented, an application that helps makers associate documentation to 3D
printed objects. Let's imagine Brian. Brian teaches fabrication
at a design school. To show examples of his designs to his students, he used Documented
to create in-situ documentation of his mini amplifier. He 3D printed a few copies of the
mini amplifiers to pass them around the classroom so that students can read the documentation
while exploring the objects in their hands.
Step one - Brian opens Documented, where he saw that the system had four tags to which
he could attach multiple media formats of
files. He used the tags to organize his information
and decided to divide his documentation information
based on the amplifier model's four main components.
Step 2 - Brian was redirected to a tinkercad sketch, where he imported the 3D model of
the amplifier and found 3D models of the four tags he had used previously and place them
on the model. He has the flexibility to choose any shape or location for the tags. After
positioning the tags, Brian exported his model with the tags as an STL file and sent it to
the 3D printer.
Step 3 - On the day of teaching, Brian distributed the amplifier models to students who then,
using mobile AR, read about the documentation information and explored the model in their
hands to better understand the design process.
For evaluation, we invited 12 participants
to explore a prebuilt project and the documentation
materials that we had collected about it. We ask them to use Documented in order to
present how they would document their prebuilt object using the system.
We found that associating documentation information
with physical tags that got embedded in the
printed objects helps people reflect on three aspects of the process and the object.
One - documentation structure, how would they approach organization after documentation
data and the different categories they would use.
Two - objects aesthetics, physicalization of
documentation information also requires consideration
of their aesthetics-related decision in the objects.
Three - personalization of information sharing and appearance, makers prefer to separate what
could be visible to the general public from
information that should be visible to other makers.
In the future, we are interested in examining
how students might use our prototype in educational
contexts to develop and transferring knowledge.
We would also like to explore how such documentation
might be perceived by users of mass-manufactured objects in the home context, for example,
by embedding information such as instructions to construct and deconstruct IKEA furniture.
If you'd like to learn more about our findings, make sure you have a look at our paper.
Thank you!