# Designing for Knowledge Capture in Fabrication Workshops

Clara Rigaud

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## To cite this version:

Clara Rigaud. Designing for Knowledge Capture in Fabrication Workshops. Human-Computer Inter-action [cs.HC]. Sorbonne Université, 2023. English. NNT: tel-04148164

HAL Id: tel-04148164

https://hal.sorbonne-universite.fr/tel-04148164

Submitted on 2 Jul 2023

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# THÈSE

présentée à
Sorbonne Université

École Doctorale N° 391 (SMAER)
Sciences mécaniques, acoustique, électronique & robotique
Institut des Systèmes Intelligents et de Robotique (ISIR)

par
Clara Rigaud

pour obtenir le diplôme de
Doctorat de Sorbonne Université

## DESIGNING FOR KNOWLEDGE CAPTURE IN FABRICATION WORKSHOPS

Soutenue le 15 Juin 2023

Nadine Couture

Professeure à l'ESTIA

Rapporteure

Theophanis Tsandilas

Chargé de recherche à l'Inria

Rapporteur

Anastasia Bezerianos

Professeure à l'Université Paris-Saclay

Examinatrice

Christian Simon

Maître de conférence à Sorbonne Université

Examineur

Gilles Bailly

Directeur de recherche au CNRS

Directeur de thèse

Yvonne Jansen

Chargée de recherche au CNRS

Encadrante
Abstract

Fabrication workshops are places equipped with machines and tools made available to the public. Members of the public, commonly called makers, can use this equipment to perform a variety of activities, going from digital fabrication to ceramics, for personal, amateur, professional or educational purposes. These places have evolved in parallel with the emergence of a “do-it-yourself” culture and peer-to-peer sharing, whereby makers not only share the workshop, but also share know-ledge and experience to make use of these spaces. Such ex-changes can take place directly, maker to maker, or through knowledge resources to track their progress, document their project on a wiki, build a tutorial so people can reproduce their project or add to a portfolio.

However, the creation of these knowledge resources is com-plex. Since it is done in parallel with the fabrication projects and different activities in the workshop, the additional task of creating such resources requires extra time and effort from makers. Creating these resources also involves the use of dif-ferent tools to capture the content and transform it into a rich knowledge medium. This leads to many conflicts between resource creation and the main fabrication task, resulting in often incomplete or non-existent knowledge resources. Tech-nology can help makers navigate these conflicts, but despite past research carried out on this subject resulting in different prototypes, most of the workshops remain unequipped with tools for knowledge resource creation.

This thesis informs why existing tools and prototypes have
so far not been adopted, by answering the following question:
which properties of a system matter to support makers in the
creation of knowledge resources?

To answer this question, we first analyze existing studies and
proposed tools and identify different objectives that makers
may have when creating resources. From that we determ-
ine the different challenges they face and note that many of
these challenges lie in the crucial moment of content capture
within the workshop. Additionally, many of the existing tools
focus on a particular objective of resource creation, which
addresses some difficulties makers face, but leave out other
issues and needs that makers may have. In a second step, we
focus on content capture and propose a framework to analyze
this phase and understand what, when, where, why, how, and
who captures content. From this analysis, we find that con-
tent capture is to be understood as an activity that can take
place in different spaces and times, and that can take several
forms. These different dimensions should be considered when
designing tools to capture visual content. Based on these res-
ults, we propose a design concept covering a wide range of the
framework's dimensions to support makers when capturing
content related to their fabrication activity. We then present
the results of a survey study gathering impressions of makers
on the design concept and how they expect it to fit with their
needs and within their respective workshops. While not all
elements of the design concept found uniform appreciation,
results suggest that (1) no single capture device would be
able to address the various needs resulting from the diverse
fabrication activities, (2) capture tools should enable makers
to delegate control over some properties in a predictable way,
and (3) the design of such tools should consider privacy and
ethics by providing control over what is captured.

Finally, we discuss the new opportunities generated by this
thesis to further inform the design of tools to support know-
ledge creation and sharing in the fabrication workshop.
# Résumé

Les ateliers de fabrication sont des lieux équipés de machines et d'outils mis à la disposition du public. Les membres, appelés makers, peuvent utiliser cet outillage pour mener diverses activités, allant de la fabrication numérique à la céramique, à des fins personnelles, amateurs, professionnelles ou éducatives. Ces lieux ont évolué avec l'émergence d'une culture du "faire soi-même" et du partage entre pairs, par laquelle les makers partagent non seulement l'atelier, mais aussi les connaissances et l'expérience pour en faire usage. Ces échanges peuvent avoir lieu directement, de maker à maker, ou par l'intermédiaire de ressources de connaissances permettant de suivre leur progression, de documenter leur projet sur un wiki, de construire un tutoriel ou d'enrichir un portfolio.

Cependant, la création de ces ressources est complexe. Elle s'effectue en parallèle des projets de fabrication et des différentes activités de l'atelier, de telle sorte que la tâche secondaire de création de ces ressources exige du temps et des efforts supplémentaires de la part des makers. La création de ces ressources implique également l'utilisation de différents outils pour capturer le contenu et le transformer en un support de connaissances riche. Il en résulte de nombreux conflits avec la tâche principale de fabrication, ce qui se traduit par des ressources de connaissances souvent incomplètes ou inexistantes. La technologie peut aider les makers à résoudre ces conflits, mais malgré les recherches menées sur ce sujet et ayant abouti à différents prototypes, la plupart des ateliers restent dépourvus d'outils de création de ressources de connaissances.

Cette thèse informe sur les raisons pour lesquelles les outils et prototypes existants n'ont pas été adoptés jusqu'à présent, en répondant à la question suivante : quelles propriétés d'un système sont pertinentes pour assister les makers dans la création de ressources de connaissances ?

Pour y répondre, nous analysons d'abord les études et les outils proposés et nous identifions les objectifs que les makers peuvent avoir lorsqu'ils créent des ressources. À partir de là, nous déterminons les défis auxquels ils sont confrontés et notons que nombre de ces défis se manifestent au moment crucial de la capture du contenu au sein de l'atelier. En outre,
de nombreux outils existants se concentrent sur un objectif particulier de la ressource, ce qui permet de résoudre certaines difficultés auxquelles les makers sont confrontés, mais laisse de côté d'autres problèmes et besoins des makers. Dans un deuxième temps, nous nous concentrons sur la capture de contenu et proposons un modèle pour en comprendre les aspects. Cette analyse montre que la capture de contenu doit être considérée comme une activité qui se déroule dans des espaces et à des moments différents, et qui prend plusieurs formes. Sur la base de ces résultats, nous proposons un concept d'outil qui couvre un large éventail des dimensions du modèle. Nous présentons ensuite les résultats d'une enquête recueillant les impressions des makers sur le concept d'outil et sur la manière dont ils s'attendent à ce qu'il corresponde à leurs besoins et à leurs ateliers respectifs. Bien que tous les éléments du concept n'aient pas fait l'objet d'une appréciation uniforme, les résultats suggèrent que (1) aucun dispositif de capture unique ne serait en mesure de répondre aux différents besoins résultant des diverses activités de fabrication, (2) les outils de capture devraient permettre aux makers de déléguer le contrôle de certaines propriétés de manière prévisible, et (3) la conception de tels outils devrait prendre en compte la vie privée et l'éthique en fournissant un contrôle sur ce qui est capturé.

Enfin, nous discutons des opportunités générées par cette thèse pour informer davantage la conception d'outils pour favoriser la création et le partage de connaissances dans l'atelier de fabrication.
Acknowledgements

J'ai tant de personnes à remercier ici. Beaucoup d'entre elles sans qui je ne serais pas en train d'écrire ces mots qui concluent mon travail de ces trois dernières années.

Avant tout, cette thèse n'aurait pas été possible sans Gilles et Yvonne qui m'ont offert leur confiance en m'ouvrant les portes du monde de la recherche, alors que sur le papier, je n'étais pas vraiment un modèle d'excellence scolaire. Merci à tous les deux d'avoir été présents pendant ces trois années et de m'avoir permis de réaliser tout ça.

Merci à tous les copains, camarades et collègues de l'ISIR avec qui j'ai eu le plaisir d'échanger quelques rires, quelques mots et parfois quelques verres, Flavien, Benoit, Baptiste, Mokrane et la spéciale team H05, Théo, Téo, Vaynee, je suis vraiment heureuse de vous avoir rencontrés ! Dédicace spéciale à Nacho pour avoir sauvé la situation à plusieurs reprises et avoir contribué à me sentir si bien accueillie quand je suis arrivée. Merci également à Sylvie, Awatef, Adela, Anne-Claire, Philippe, Loïc, Laurent et toutes ces personnes si attentives à ce que tout se passe bien pour tout le monde dans le laboratoire.

Et ma si chère Aleks, après ces années à tes côtés, je suis heureuse de t'annoncer que tu passes le test de Turing (I trust you). On a vécu tant de choses toutes les deux, entre les aventures au milieu des alligators et ce long périple de trois ans. Merci pour tous ces rires et ces beaux moments et d'avoir toujours été présente pour déguster un bon tsar lazar !
L'énergie que nous avons créée ne mourra pas, et Україна переможе.

Un grand merci à toutes les personnes du Fablab de la Sorbonne qui font de ce lieu un endroit si chaleureux, Flora, Vincent, Pierre. Christian, merci d'avoir toujours été si attentif à moi pendant ces trois années, pour ta présence, et tes délicieux jus d'oranges pressées. Merci aussi à Stéphane et Manuel pour toutes les choses que vous m'avez apprises.

Je n'aurais pas survécu à ces dernières années sans mes précieux amis, qu'ils soient proches ou loin de moi, récents ou anciens, Bérengère, Maxime, Antoine, Axel, Simon, Pauline, Jean, Aline et toutes ces autres personnes avec qui j'ai eu tant plaisir à passer du temps. Merci d'avoir été là pour toutes ces marrades et pour les moments un peu plus durs, et surtout de tolérer les blagues nulles sorties de mon cerveau parfois fatigué.

Merci à ma famille pour leur amour et leur présence, même si je suis loin, Mutti, Fabio, mon Papa et ma Maman qui croyez en moi et m'avez toujours permis de suivre les voies qui me semblaient les plus justes dans ma vie. Je n'aurais pas pu faire ça sans vous.

Merci aussi à mes amis animaux, Mac DesMaqueraux, Maki, retourné au paradis des poissons rouges et qui m'a aussi un peu aidé pendant ces années de thèse, et bien sur, mon Billy, mon fils, tu es ma fierté.

Enfin, merci à Adriano Celentano, DakhaBrakha, Dan Deacon, Elton John, Ennio Morricone, Marvin Pontiac, Fat White Family, Nicolas Jaar, ODB, S8JFOU, SUUNS, Trio, Tyler, Unloved, The Warlocks, Wume, Yat-Kha, et bien sur Yello d'avoir accompagné les différentes humeurs de mon quotidien.
# List of publications

## Peer reviewed publications:

* Clara Rigaud, Gilles Bailly, Ignacio Avellino and Yvonne Jansen. 'Exploring Capturing Approaches in Shared Fabrication Workshops: Current Practice and Opportunities'. In: *Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction* 6.CSCW2 (Nov. 2022)

* Clara Rigaud, Gilles Bailly and Yvonne Jansen. 'Ressources de connaissances dans les ateliers de fabrication : objectifs et défis'. fr. In: *IHM '23: Proceedings of the 34th Conference on l'Interaction Humain-Machine*. Troyes: ACM, Apr. 2023

## Doctoral consortium and workshops:

* Clara Rigaud. 'From the Makerspace to the Web: Creating Knowledge Resources from Fabrication Activities'. In: *Sixteenth International Conference on Tangible, Embedded, and Embodied Interaction*. TEI '22. New York, NY, USA: Association for Computing Machinery, Feb. 2022. ISBN: 978-1-4503-9147-4

* Clara Rigaud, Yvonne Jansen and Gilles Bailly. *Automating Documentation Considered Harmful (Some of the Time)*. en. Apr. 2022
# Contents

Abstract iii

Résumé v

Acknowledgements vi

List of publications vii

Contents viii

List of figures x

List of tables xiii

1. Introduction 1

1.1. Thesis statement and research questions 3

1.2. Research approaches and methods 4

1.3. Contributions 5

1.4. Overview of the thesis 7

2. Background: Fabrication Workshops and knowledge 9

2.1. Fabrication workshops history and evolution 9

2.1.1. 1950 - 2000: Birth and genesis 10

2.1.2. 21st century: Institutionalization and popularisation 14

2.2. Fabrication workshops, today 16

2.2.1. Working in a fabrication workshop 17

2.2.2. Fabrication workshops as a social and pedagogical place 19

2.3. Knowledge in fabrication workshops 21

2.3.1. Fabrication knowledge 21

2.3.2. Knowledge resources in fabrication 26

2.4. Conclusion 30

3. Creating knowledge resources from fabrication activities 33

3.1. Methodology 34

3.1.1. Definition of the search query 34

3.1.2. Exclusion criteria 36

3.1.3. Corpus analysis strategy 37

3.1.4. Limitations 37

3.2. Objectives and Challenges in the creation of knowledge resources 38

3.2.1. Represent a fabrication project 39
<table><tr><td>3.2.2. Reuse one's work</td><td>40</td></tr><tr><td>3.2.3. Support reflection</td><td>42</td></tr><tr><td>3.2.4. Communicate</td><td>43</td></tr><tr><td>3.2.5. Conclusion</td><td>44</td></tr><tr><td>3.3. Using the framework to analyse tools</td><td>45</td></tr><tr><td>3.3.1. Tools to support makers in the creation of knowledge resources</td><td>45</td></tr><tr><td>3.3.2. Strategies to support the 4 objectives</td><td>52</td></tr><tr><td>3.3.3. Conclusion</td><td>55</td></tr><tr><td>3.4. Discussion</td><td>57</td></tr><tr><td>3.4.1. Capturing and transforming the resources</td><td>58</td></tr><tr><td>3.4.2. Representing and disseminating the resources</td><td>59</td></tr><tr><td>3.4.3. Conclusion</td><td>61</td></tr><tr><td>3.5. Conclusion</td><td>62</td></tr></table>

## 4. Content Capturing for Knowledge Resources in Fabrication Workshops 65

<table><tr><td>4.1. Framework: Content Capturing for Knowledge Resources in Fabrication Workshops</td><td>66</td></tr><tr><td>4.1.1. Why to capture?</td><td>67</td></tr><tr><td>4.1.2. What to capture?</td><td>70</td></tr><tr><td>4.1.3. How to capture?</td><td>72</td></tr><tr><td>4.1.4. When to capture?</td><td>74</td></tr><tr><td>4.1.5. Where to capture?</td><td>75</td></tr><tr><td>4.1.6. Who captures?</td><td>76</td></tr><tr><td>4.2. How to Use This Framework</td><td>77</td></tr><tr><td>4.2.1. Describing capture tools</td><td>79</td></tr><tr><td>4.2.2. Comparing capture tools</td><td>81</td></tr><tr><td>4.2.3. Conclusion</td><td>83</td></tr><tr><td>4.3. Discussion</td><td>83</td></tr><tr><td>4.3.1. Generative power</td><td>83</td></tr><tr><td>4.3.2. Opportunity for design: Supporting Diverse and Distributed Activities</td><td>85</td></tr><tr><td>4.3.3. Opportunity for design: Exploring Automated versus User Control</td><td>86</td></tr><tr><td>4.4. Conclusion</td><td>86</td></tr></table>

## 5. Exploring Visual Capturing Approaches 88

<table><tr><td>5.1. Design concept</td><td>88</td></tr><tr><td>5.1.1. Approach</td><td>89</td></tr><tr><td>5.1.2. Capush</td><td>91</td></tr><tr><td>5.1.3. Unit Types</td><td>92</td></tr><tr><td>5.2. Study design</td><td>95</td></tr><tr><td>5.2.1. Research Questions</td><td>95</td></tr></table>
<table>
  <tbody>
    <tr>
      <td>5.2.2. Survey Design and Approach</td>
      <td>96</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>5.2.3. Participant Recruitment</td>
      <td>98</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>5.2.4. Analysis and Report</td>
      <td>98</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>5.3. Findings</td>
      <td>100</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>5.3.1. RQ1: Current Capturing Practices</td>
      <td>100</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>5.3.2. RQ2: Exploration of Framework Dimensions Through Capush</td>
      <td>102</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>5.3.3. RQ3: Potential Issues and Concerns</td>
      <td>110</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>5.4. Discussion and Opportunities for Design</td>
      <td>111</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>5.4.1. Multiplicity and Variety of the Capturing Units</td>
      <td>112</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>5.4.2. Degree of automation: Mixed-Initiative Content Capture</td>
      <td>114</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>5.4.3. Social Context: Privacy and Ethics</td>
      <td>116</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>5.5. Conclusion</td>
      <td>118</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td><strong>6. Discussion, Future perspectives, and Conclusion</strong></td>
      <td><strong>119</strong></td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>6.1. What are the objectives of knowledge resources and the challenges faced by makers creating them?</td>
      <td>119</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>6.2. Which properties of a system matter to support makers in the capture of content from fabrication activities?</td>
      <td>120</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>6.3. Short term perspectives</td>
      <td>122</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>6.3.1. Refining the objectives, challenges and strategies identified</td>
      <td>122</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>6.3.2. Studying the properties of Capush in the field</td>
      <td>124</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>6.4. Long-term perspectives</td>
      <td>124</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>6.4.1. Further explore how automation of content capture and resource creation might benefit makers and the workshop</td>
      <td>125</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>6.4.2. Further explore how to extend capture tools</td>
      <td>128</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>6.4.3. Further explore how to extend knowledge resource creation tools</td>
      <td>129</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>6.5. Conclusion</td>
      <td>130</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td><strong>Bibliography</strong></td>
      <td><strong>131</strong></td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td><strong>A. Implementing Capush</strong></td>
      <td><strong>147</strong></td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td><strong>B. Asking ChatGPT for fabrication tips</strong></td>
      <td><strong>150</strong></td>
    </tr>
  </tbody>
</table>
# List of Figures

<table><tr><td>2.1.</td><td>The Milwaukee-matic-II</td><td>10</td></tr><tr><td>2.2.</td><td>The Tech Model Railroad Club in 1960</td><td>11</td></tr><tr><td>2.3.</td><td>Front cover of the January 1975 issue of the Popular Electronics magazine</td><td>13</td></tr><tr><td>2.4.</td><td>First commercialised 3D printer by Charles W.Hull</td><td>14</td></tr><tr><td>2.5.</td><td>European map of the Fablab network</td><td>16</td></tr><tr><td>2.6.</td><td>Spatial layout of the Fablab at Sorbonne Université</td><td>18</td></tr><tr><td>2.7.</td><td>Views of different workshops structured according to similar layouts</td><td>19</td></tr><tr><td>2.8.</td><td>Schema showing the structure of a fabrication project</td><td>19</td></tr><tr><td>2.9.</td><td>Two axis for describing knowledge</td><td>22</td></tr><tr><td>2.10.</td><td>Illustrations of our example</td><td>24</td></tr><tr><td>2.11.</td><td>Illustrations of our example</td><td>25</td></tr><tr><td>2.12.</td><td>A view of the Sorbonne University's Fablab, structured as an open space</td><td>26</td></tr><tr><td>2.13.</td><td>Physical examples of 3D printing parameters</td><td>27</td></tr><tr><td>2.14.</td><td>Physical examples of 3D printed objects</td><td>27</td></tr><tr><td>2.15.</td><td>Crochet Knitting Clock Instructables (introduction)</td><td>28</td></tr><tr><td>2.16.</td><td>Look Mum No Computer animatronic video</td><td>30</td></tr><tr><td>2.17.</td><td>Crochet Knitting Clock Instructables (steps)</td><td>30</td></tr><tr><td>3.1.</td><td>Methodology for the literature review</td><td>35</td></tr><tr><td>3.2.</td><td>Illustration of the search query</td><td>36</td></tr><tr><td>3.3.</td><td>4 objectives of knowledge resources</td><td>38</td></tr><tr><td>3.4.</td><td>Software solutions</td><td>46</td></tr><tr><td>3.5.</td><td>Documentation stations in the workshop</td><td>48</td></tr><tr><td>3.6.</td><td>Mobile devices in the workshop</td><td>51</td></tr><tr><td>4.1.</td><td>Illustration of how two chapters compare in their degree of focus</td><td>66</td></tr><tr><td>4.2.</td><td>Objectives of knowledge resources vs objectives of content capture</td><td>67</td></tr><tr><td>4.3.</td><td>Objectives of knowledge resources</td><td>67</td></tr><tr><td>4.4.</td><td>Presets in the software controlling the laser cutting machine</td><td>68</td></tr><tr><td>4.5.</td><td>Real time work in progress on Instagram</td><td>69</td></tr><tr><td>4.6.</td><td>Gong et al. equip makers and workshops with various sensors</td><td>71</td></tr><tr><td>4.7.</td><td>Community hardware devices in the workshop</td><td>72</td></tr><tr><td>4.8.</td><td>Whitlock et al.'s AuthAR places sensors at different locations in the space</td><td>75</td></tr><tr><td>4.9.</td><td>Capturing visual content with Dodoc and Protobooth</td><td>79</td></tr><tr><td>4.10.</td><td>Visualising projects evolution with Protobooth meta-data capture</td><td>80</td></tr><tr><td>4.11.</td><td>Figure illustrating 6 systems for capturing visual content</td><td>81</td></tr><tr><td>4.12.</td><td>Pictures taken from steps of tutorials found on Instructables</td><td>85</td></tr></table>
<table><tr><td>5.1. Axis of the Capush design space</td><td>89</td></tr><tr><td>5.2. Physical mockups of the five unit types</td><td>93</td></tr><tr><td>5.3. Stills from the video shown to respondents</td><td>98</td></tr><tr><td>5.4. Overview of demographics and background of our respondents</td><td>99</td></tr><tr><td>5.5. Current practices in capturing content from fabrication activities</td><td>100</td></tr><tr><td>5.6. Frequency of help solicited by respondents to capture images and videos.</td><td>101</td></tr><tr><td>5.7. Reported likelihoods of taking pictures and recording videos with Capush</td><td>103</td></tr><tr><td>5.8. Reported usefulness for the 4 types of tags suggested</td><td>104</td></tr><tr><td>5.9. Capture and retrieval better than current</td><td>105</td></tr><tr><td>5.10. Reported appreciation of the camera units of Capush</td><td>106</td></tr><tr><td>5.11. Reported likelihood to capture the process and the result with Capush according to the activities</td><td>107</td></tr><tr><td>5.12. Appreciation of the manual control vs automated control</td><td>108</td></tr><tr><td>5.13. Appreciation of a shared local repository with tags</td><td>109</td></tr><tr><td>5.14. Appreciation of the overall system</td><td>110</td></tr></table>
# List of Tables

<table><tr><td>3.1. Comparison of the 36 articles in our literature review</td><td>37</td></tr><tr><td>3.2. Analysis of tools through the framework of objectives and challenges</td><td>52</td></tr><tr><td>3.3. Strategies to support the creation of knowledge resources</td><td>56</td></tr><tr><td>4.1. Comparing vision-based capture tools using our framework</td><td>78</td></tr><tr><td>5.1. Description of the Capush units according to the dimensions of the framework</td><td>93</td></tr><tr><td>A.1. Overview of our proof of concept implementations sorted by feature.</td><td>148</td></tr></table>
# Introduction

1.

Is there anything more unique to the human race than its
special abilities to effectively transmit and refine knowledge
about tool use?

Civilisations of yesterday and today were born of the partic-
ular ability of humans to understand their environment and
to interact with it through increasingly numerous and soph-
isticated techniques, skills and tools, whose knowledge was
transmitted over time scales exceeding that of a single lifetime
[10, 93]. For a very long time, mastery of a tool was reserved
primarily for the individual whose survival depended on it,
whether for finding food or as a means to earn a living. Inven-
tions, techniques and arts were transmitted within the social
group, the family, then through writings and teachings.

With time, the environment has become more complex in
many societies, where the level of comfort for all and mass
production has made most of us lose our power to act dir-
ectly on the things we interact with on a daily basis. We
have reached a point where simply building the most com-
mon object, such as a toaster, has become a perilous task
[126]. The mastery of know-hows and techniques became
distant for many of those who do not have them as a source
of livelihood.

Today, access to materials and knowledge through commu-
nication technologies has expanded these boundaries, so that
learning to repair, to master a tool or a machine, to invent
and create new things is possible. Situated learning which is
the learning of concepts through interactions with physical
objects in a collaborative way [80], is making a comeback.
First, through communities of practice composed of people
who want to learn certain techniques and gather around this
wish and exchange through it [145]. But also in the pedagogical field, with a growing interest in concrete concepts in addition to the more classical methodologies of the educational world. Places dedicated to this quest have appeared to welcome those who wish to do so, and are known under a variety of names such as fabrication workshops, Fablabs, makerspaces, ...

Fabrication workshops were born from the philosophy of giving the power over technologies back to all, and in this philosophy, sharing material resources, knowledge and skills is key. Workshops gather people around machines and tools made available to the public to design, build, repair, prototype, learn and invent things [34]. These people, commonly called makers, can use the equipment to perform a variety of activities, going from building a robot, to ceramics, for personal, amateur, professional or educational purposes.

These places have evolved in parallel with the emergence of a “do-it-yourself” culture and peer-to-peer sharing, whereby makers not only share the workshop, but also share knowledge and experience to make use of these spaces, giving rise to digital documents called knowledge resources.

Knowledge resources are at the heart of the philosophy and practices of fabrication workshops, however, creating them is a complex activity. Since it is done in parallel with the fabrication activities, happening at different moments of a project and while the maker can be in different places inside or outside the workshop, the additional task of creating such resources requires extra time and effort from makers [151]. Knowledge resources can be of different forms and their creation consequently requires the use of different tools to capture the content, transform it and represent it as a rich knowledge medium [138]. This leads to many conflicts between resource creation and the main fabrication task, resulting in often incomplete or non-existent knowledge resources.

Therefore, providing tools to support makers during this whole process is crucial. While a number of systems and tools have been already proposed to support makers in specific situations, there are still many cases where these tools are not well adapted. Indeed, there is a wide variety of activities happening in fabrication workshops, which themselves
are structured according to a variety of spatial layouts [8],
and there are different reasons and manners to create content
about a fabrication project. It is a challenge for a device to
cover all of these cases, and most of the workshops remain
unequipped with tools for knowledge resource creation.

1.1. Thesis statement and research questions

Exploring the habits and providing tools generic enough in-
side the workshop to fit different activities and purposes in
knowledge creation, might lead to more effective approaches
for the work of all makers, and help them to create richer and
more reusable content and resources. Based on this statement,
the question I address in this thesis is the following:

Which properties of a system matter to support makers
in the creation of knowledge resources?

Answering this questions means first to understand why
makers actually need support for knowledge resource cre-
ation. Only after understanding these needs, we can identify
which properties of a system might help them in this task.
Therefore, this question can further be broken down into two
research questions. The first one is:

► RQ1: What are the objectives of knowledge re-
sources and the challenges faced by makers creat-
ing them?

Answering this question will highlight that various ob-
jectives can be pursued by makers for their creation
of resources, but also that there is a main challenge,
transversal to these various objectives, which lies in
the stage of the capture of content, happening inside
the workshop.

Understanding this leads to the second research question:

► RQ2: Which properties of a system matter to sup-
port makers in the capture of content from fab-
rication activities?
To answer this second question, we first need to un-
derstand 1) the aspects of content capture, and 2) the
current practices of makers capturing content, in order
to 3) explore how these aspects and practices inform
the properties of capture tools.

Therefore, this question is segmented in the following
sub-questions:

* RQ2.1: What are the different aspects of content capture in fabrication workshops?

* RQ2.2: What are makers’ current capturing prac-
tices during fabrication activities?

* RQ2.3: How do the aspects of capture inform the
properties of capture tools in fabrication work-
shops?

For both of these research questions, I highlight opportunities
for the design of tools to support makers in the creation of
knowledge resources.

## 1.2. Research approaches and methods

During this thesis, I studied the thematic of knowledge re-
lated to fabrication and DIY activities with the goal to inform
the design of tools to support makers creating knowledge
resources alongside their fabrication projects. To do that, my
approach is to understand, theoretically and empirically, the
richness of makers’ profiles, through their objectives in cre-
ating knowledge resources, and through the variety of their
practices in the workshop, in order to identify the important
aspects to consider when designing systems. This thesis
lies in the field of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and
makes use of the research methods of this field. Although I
borrow some concepts, my thesis is not located in the fields
of educational science, knowledge theory or fabrication. Also,
the SARS-CoV-2 epidemic occurred shortly after I started
working on this thesis, which led me to adapt my research
methods according to the restrictions. The initial plan was to
do a field study travelling to a variety of different workshops,
then restrictions came in place concerning closure of spaces,
uncertainty when they would open again, and when they
finally did, shortages of electronic components. The research
methods used in this thesis are therefore based on theoretical
literature reviews and a survey study:

*   **Theoretical literature review:** I first reviewed the literature in a manner similar to a systematic literature review in the fields of education, design, fabrication and HCI to identify the different objectives of knowledge resources and challenges associated to their creation (RQ1). I report on this literature review in Chapter 3. I also conducted a second literature review, reported in Chapter 4, which focused on capturing content and capture tools in fabrication workshops, in order to identify their different aspects (RQ2.1).

*   **Survey study:** We conducted a questionnaire-based on-line study to identify makers’ practices regarding their content capture habits (RQ2.2) and to explore different properties of capture tools (RQ2.3). This survey is presented in Chapter 5.

**1.3. Contributions**

This thesis contains 4 types of contributions: survey, theoret-
ical, empirical and artefact as categorised by Wobbrock and
Kientz [149].

**Survey and Theoretical contributions**

Two contributions of this thesis consist in the analysis and
structuring of the results (survey) brought by my two literat-
ure reviews. From each of these analyses, I extract a frame-
work to describe and compare systems to support makers in
the creation of knowledge resources, as well as to generate
new research directions (theoretical).

First, in Chapter 3, I identify, from the literature, objectives
and challenges related to knowledge resources that I classify
according to their transversality and their specificity. By

RQ1
structuring these challenges according to the identified ob-
jectives, I present a framework and illustrate how it allows
to describe and compare different tools provided to support
makers for given challenges. This helps to inform the design
of tools both by highlighting some existing strategies, and
also by showing the support needs for some common chal-
lenges, especially capture.

Second, in Chapter 4, I identify, from the literature, the dif-
ferent dimensions of content capture in the fabrication work-
shop, structuring this phenomenon according to the 5W+1H
questions: Why to capture, What to capture, How to cap-
ture, When to capture, Where to capture, and Who captures.
I provide a framework to describe this complex activity.

I then show how this framework can be used as an instru-
ment for the analysis of content capture tools, and identify
dimensions that are under-explored by existing tools.

RQ2.1

RQ2.3

Artefact contribution

From the dimensions identified by (RQ2.1), I envision a system
in the form of a design concept called Capush, built from
the design space generated by these dimensions, this time
focusing on visual content capture (Chapter 5).

RQ2.3

Empirical contribution

Reporting on the results of the survey study (Chapter 5), I first
provide an empirical contribution on the current practices of
makers regarding their capturing practices and focusing on
the different activities they perform in the workshop. Then, I
report on the impressions of makers on the Capush design
concept, and how they expect it to fit with their needs and
within their respective workshops.

RQ2.2

RQ2.3
# 1.4. Overview of the thesis

## Chapter 2

The context of this thesis is fabrication workshops, and I present here the history and evolution of these places. I explain how they became popular and are now places welcoming a variety of people performing various fabrication activities. I also explain how these places originated from a culture of knowledge sharing that still exists today. We learn that this knowledge sharing takes various forms, in particular digital documents such as tutorials, documentations or portfolios that are called knowledge resources in this thesis.

## Chapter 3

Considering the variety of terminology used to describe knowledge resources across domains (tutorials, documentations, portfolios, ...), as well as the many barriers to their creation, my co-authors and I clarify the objectives and challenges of these resources (RQ1). Conducting a literature review, we identify 4 objectives and 8 challenges associated with knowledge resources. This analysis results in a framework that we use to analyze a selection of tools from the literature to support the creation of these resources. We find that the challenges associated with the different objectives can benefit from technological interventions at different moments of the resource creation, and in particular the moment of content capture.

## Chapter 4

Focusing on what happens in the fabrication workshop, my co-authors and I try to better understand the different aspects of content capture. Content capture is analyzed along 6 dimensions: Why, What, Where, How, When, Who, giving rise to a second framework, this time focused on capturing in the workshop (RQ2.1). We demonstrate how this framework can serve as an instrument to describe and compare systems this time supporting makers in the specific step of content capture,
and then further develop around the directions to explore that this analysis generates. In particular, we highlight the need for tools to support diverse and distributed activities, as well as to explore automated versus user control of capture (RQ2.3).

## Chapter 5

Based on the results of the previous chapters, my co-authors and I explore properties of a capture tool to support diverse and distributed activities and to automate some of these properties (RQ2.3). We derive three dimensions along which capturing systems can vary: multiplicity (number of capturing devices), variety (feature homogeneity between capturing devices), and degree of automation of features, from which we develop a design concept, termed Capush. Second, we report on the results of a survey study aiming at better understanding what the capture habits of makers are, and how they would consider a system such as Capush in their capture practice in the fabrication workshop (RQ2.2, RQ2.3). We learn that it is important to encourage the multiplicity of capture units and their variety according to the activities, as well as automating certain properties of the capture to reduce the physical and cognitive costs. We also highlight the implications of such tools in the workshop setting, in particular, considering privacy and ethics.

## Chapter 6

The purpose of this final chapter is to discuss the limitations of the different research works constituting this thesis, as well as new research opportunities generated by them. I present the different progress on each of the sub-questions RQ1, RQ2, after which I discuss the limitations. Finally, I present research directions that can be taken in the short term and then in the long term to inform the design of tools for knowledge capture in the fabrication workshops.
# Background: Fabrication
Workshops and
knowledge

2.

Fabrication workshops are spaces equipped with a variety of digital machines, tools, devices and materials that welcome a diverse audience of people from different background, profiles and practices, who work on projects, create, prototype or repair. Their particularity is that they are associated with a culture of sharing and mutual aid that encourages the creation and sharing of knowledge between peers around their fabrication practices. The users of these workshops are therefore used to share the knowledge associated with their projects, often via the internet. In this chapter, I describe the history of these places, alongside the raise of a culture or peer production and knowledge exchange, as to become places of learning, collaboration and social value. Then, I provide an overview of the knowledge creation practices that were born with, and became specific to these places. I will introduce the current practices of makers today, who create, share and use different kind of knowledge resources. These resources can take the form digital documents that provide traces about projects made in the fabrication workshops, and are central to this thesis.

## 2.1. Fabrication workshops history
and evolution

Fabrication workshops are a type of communal space that found their origin in the second half of the 20th century and evolved with the different technological progress made during this era, in particular the development of computers, the internet and later digital fabrication machines. These types of spaces have developed alongside the democratisation

2.1 Fabrication workshops history and evolution . . . . . . 9

2.2 Fabrication workshops, today . . . . 16

2.3 Knowledge in fabrication workshops21

2.4 Conclusion . . . . 30
of hobbyist hands-on practices, the growing access to the internet and to digital machines [81, 154]. The appearance and growth of these places has also come with the construction of a culture of itself, as to become a network of knowledge and resources freely shared between communities (almost) all over the world [50]. This section provides an overview of the origins and history of these places.

### 2.1.1. 1950 - 2000: Birth and genesis

<figure><img src="image_3.png" /><figcaption>**Figure 2.1.:** The Milwaukee-matic-II, the first commercialised Numeric Control machine</figcaption></figure>

In the 1950s, several factors came together at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, that would allow the emergence of both a new field of research on manufacturing machine automation, and the birth of a culture of making and accessing free knowledge [50, 81]. Indeed, one of the first Computer Numerical Control (CNC) machine named the “Cincinnati Milacron Hydrotel” was born in one of the rooms of the institute in 1952 from one parent milling machine and another TX-0¹[154].

This would be one of the first stones to the evolution of CNC machines, which would be expanded to other machine tools such as drilling machines or lathes², as well as the birth of new disciplines to create designs with these machines: Computer Aided Manufacturing (CAM) and Computer Aided Design (CAD) [154]. In 1958, the “Milwaukee-matic-II”, shown in Figure 2.1, would become the first machine to be commercialised [154].

<footnote>1: The TX-0, for Transistorized Experimental computer zero was one of the first transistorised computers and was built in 1956. It was the first computer at MIT which allowed for direct interaction and didn't require the use of punch cards.</footnote>

<footnote>2: Drilling machines and lathes are machines used in industry to cut metal.</footnote>
<figure><img src="image_4.png" /><figcaption>**Figure 2.2.:** The Tech Model Railroad Club in 1960, source: MIT Museum</figcaption></figure>

Steven Levy, in his book "Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution" [81], traces the history of what became the hacker culture. He starts his book by telling the story of a group of passionate students in 1959 at MIT. These students were part of the *Tech Model RailRoad Club* and spent most of their time together working on the control system of their miniaturised railroads. During these times, it is said that they developed their own language, and among a set of invented words, used the word "*hack*" to call an undertaken project or a product built with passion, involving "innovation, style and technical virtuosity" [81]. These students had access to the TX-0, during times when "officials" were not using it, and started creating code to compile assembler or make the computer play music during the night. The first hackers were born, and with them the first hacker culture and ethic. Levy [81] enumerates the different moral rules established by this group of students at the time:

1. "Access to computers—and anything that might teach you something about the way the world works—should be unlimited and total. Always yield to the Hands-On Imperative!"
2. “All information should be free.”

3. “Mistrust Authority—Promote Decentralization.”

4. “Hackers should be judged by their hacking, not bogus criteria such as degrees, age, race, or position.”

5. “You can create art and beauty on a computer.”

6. “Computers can change your life for the better.”

This way of thinking continued to spread between the different members at first, then between universities from the 1960s onward, notably with the appearance of Arpanet³ which allowed these hackers to exchange programs and techniques between themselves [81].

The 1970's saw the emergence of a multitude of electronics enthusiasts, who embarked on projects presented by magazines such as *Popular Electronics*⁴, *Radio Electronics*⁵ or vendors of kits to build such as *Heathkit*⁶ [81]. Hobbyists could now discover and experiment in areas that had previously been reserved for the privileged few in the academic or industrial world. In particular, 1975 was a landmark year for the magazine *Popular Electronics* which offered for the first time to the general public to build a computer sold in kit form at $400 [81]. This was followed by the democratisation of the first affordable computers in the 1980s.

From universities to the home, different kinds of communities began to come together to collaborate and exchange knowledge directly. The first spaces dedicated to the practices between programming and electronics seem to have appeared in Germany in the early 1980s. The *Chaos Computer Club*⁷, created in 1981 quickly inspired people in the United States who set up in their turn the first *Hackerspaces*, gathering again in a place dedicated to discovery, learning, experiments and creation [81]. The spirit of knowledge sharing in this hacker universe quickly began to spread on the Internet.

The next 20 years saw the number of internet users grow, the free knowledge ethic spread on the online forums. The *Free Software Foundation*⁸, which would later give rise to the GPL licenses⁹, was created in 1985, institutionalising for the first time the philosophy of knowledge sharing by making computer programs free and open source. This philosophy was also propagated in the Do-It-Yourself and Do-It-With Others movements favouring peer production and peer learning.

3. Arpanet was the first decentralised network allowing to share data over the United States

4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Popular_Electronics

5. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio-Electronics

6. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heathkit

7. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaos_Computer_Club

8. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Software_Foundation

9. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_General Public_License
<figure><img src="image_5.png" /><figcaption>**Figure 2.3.** Front cover of the January 1975 issue of the Popular Electronics magazine, introducing the Altair 8800 in kit for $400</figcaption></figure>

Terms like *hacktivism* then gave birth to *maktivism* and *craft-ivism* [33] formed by people taking power over technology, this time physical. All these movements and the communities formed around them had for essence the free access to knowledge, to the machines and tools, so that whoever wants it can reuse and build on the productions and the discoveries made by others.

Meanwhile, CNC machines and CAD/CAM had continued to develop in the industry. 1980 and 1990 saw the emergence of additive manufacturing, a technology consisting in adding material layers by layers to create a three dimensional physical object based on virtual 3D CAD models. The first commercialised 3D printer shown in Figure 2.4 was created by Charles W. Hull in 1984. Additive manufacturing showed
<figure><img src="image_6.png" /><figcaption>**Figure 2.4.:** First commercialised 3D printer by Charles W.Hull</figcaption></figure>

great potential in industrial applications as it would enable rapid prototyping, speed up the production, allow to make virtual objects tangible and that with any shape and geometry with a reduced cost [154]. However, most of these machines were still protected by patents at the time and would not be made available outside of the industrial context until the early 2000’s.

Between the philosophy of sharing and progress in computer assisted manufacturing machines, researchers and industrialists of the second part of the 20th century had laid the first stones of an era where knowledge and technology would be made accessible to all.

### 2.1.2. 21st century: Institutionalization and popularisation

In the early 2000’s at the Center of Bits and Atoms at the MIT, Neil Gershenfeld began teaching a course on computer controlled lasers, 3D printing and electronics. He saw in these different activities an opportunity for learning by doing and gradually developed the concept of Fabrication Laboratories (or FabLab for short). Fablabs are a model of workshops providing machines and materials to users, and inspired by the spirit of sharing and free access to technology and knowledge. They are governed by a charter¹⁰, which stipulates among other things that knowledge must be shared, that

10: https://fab.cba.mit.edu/about/charter/
each project created in the Fablab space must be documented
so that anyone can reproduce it [50].

Little by little, the price of machines went down and the plans
and methods to drive them could be shared all around the
world, for instance with projects like *RepRap*¹¹, which made
the first open-source 3D-printing machines. This allowed
the productions of different objects to be decentralised, and
people to collaborate on projects from different places of the
world and was considered a third industrial revolution [50,
63].

In 2005, Dale Dougherty launched a magazine in the vein of
what was then *Popular Electronics*, featuring do-it-yourself
fabrication projects. He named this magazine “Make Magazine”
and created the “Maker” movement, sowing the seeds of a
new community of enthusiasts of inventions, hacks and do-it-
yourself projects. These makers can meet at dedicated events
called Maker Faires, which are still going on today [34, 100].

During this decade, the number of Fablabs and similar work-
shops had continued to grow, and the 2010's saw the cre-
ation of an international network of Fablabs, connecting pre-
viously informal organisations together. Figure 2.5 shows
the European map of all the Fablabs belonging to the Fab-
lab network. The Fab Foundation¹² created in 2009, had the
mission to offer sources of knowledge and materials for fab-
rication workshops in the world. Gershenfeld also created
the FabAcademy, a distributed training program connect-
ing several Fablabs together in a virtual campus for a few
months, to learn the different practices of digital fabrication
and electronic prototyping, as well as the practices of project
documentation [50]. The creation of knowledge resources
related to fabrication activities became an important part in
the journey of the maker in fabrication workshops.

11: RepRap for Replication Rapid Prototyper, is an open source 3D printer whose components can be manufactured with the machine itself. The machine can thus self-replicate.

12: https://fabfoundation.org/
<figure><img src="image_7.png" /><figcaption>**Figure 2.5.:** European map of all the active and planned Fablabs belonging to the Fablab network - Source https://www.fablabs.io/labs/map</figcaption></figure>

## 2.2. Fabrication workshops, today

Since 2010, many models of fabrication workshops have been developed in different places, especially in libraries, schools, universities, and other innovation or co-working spaces [12, 100, 147]. Many names are used to refer to fabrication workshops, such as 100kgarages, telecottages, innovation labs, co-working spaces, media labs in addition to Fablab, maker-spaces or hackerspaces [63]. If these spaces have in common that they offer users access to a range of numerically controlled machines, they are difficult to define [17, 63]. They vary in aim, ambition, in their business models, especially in terms of subsidies and management, and in the audience they welcome [152]. Indeed, some of these places are open to all, with relatively cheap subscriptions, following a policy of valuing innovation by encouraging users to share their knowledge through documentations and wikis, while others operate more on a service model, paid by the user. In the latter, makers become customers which can complicate expectations of knowledge sharing. In this thesis, I mainly focus on the first ones, places open to all, as my focus is on knowledge sharing. I explore in this section how these workshops
work in practice, and how they became places of social and
pedagogical interest.

**2.2.1. Working in a fabrication workshop**

Not all workshops are identical and the way of working depends at least partially on the equipment and the layout of a specific space. The Fablab network proposes a list of basic equipment, which can be found in most of the workshops, but some workshops specialise and equip themselves according to the demands of the public or to their own interests and financial capacity [100]. In practice, all workshops have one or more 3D printers, laser cutters, vinyl cutters and CNC mills for large cuts and for the creation of electronic circuit boards [8, 98, 103]. There are also generally tools and materials for electronic prototyping: soldering stations, measuring equipment, micro-controllers, electronic components and sensors [12, 17]. Some workshops offer textile machines and materials, sewing machines, digital embroidery and weaving machines, silkscreen printing facilities, pottery materials, woodworking or even cooking and biology [17]. Figure 2.6 shows the equipment of the Fablab at Sorbonne Université as it was in 2019.

The workshops are also equipped with software resources for
2D and 3D design, for programming and for the control of
different digital machines [30, 46].

Annett et al. [8] explored how these different kinds of work-
shops are spatially organised. Using a case study of several
workshops, they showed that most of these places are open
spaces with a series of areas dedicated to certain activities,
including a computer design area, a woodworking area, an
electronics area and so on. Figure 2.7 from their paper shows
how different spaces happen to be structured following sim-
ilar layouts. They also show that some areas are separated
and reserved for noisy or dirty activities and machines [8].

People attending the workshops are working on different
kinds of projects often involving many kinds of fabrication
activities. Makers projects may extend over a more or less
long period, sometimes including several iterations [135]. As
shown Figure 2.8, fabrication projects can be described as a
<figure><img src="image_8.png" /><figcaption>**Figure 2.6.:** A schema representing the spatial layout of the Fablab at Sorbonne Université in 2019.</figcaption></figure>

sequence of activities taking place inside the workshop, or
outside the workshop, depending on whether they require
the use of space or not.
<figure><img src="image_9.png" /><figcaption>**Figure 2.7.** Diagram borrowed from Annett et al. [8], showing views of different workshops structured according to similar layouts</figcaption></figure>

<figure><img src="image_10.png" /><figcaption>**Figure 2.8.** Fabrication projects can spread over a more or less period of time. They are composed of different fabrication activities, happening at different places, inside or outside of the fabrication workshop</figcaption></figure>

### 2.2.2. Fabrication workshops as a social and pedagogical place

Beyond their tools and materials, fabrication workshops are valued for the pedagogical and social opportunities they provide as community spaces, and continue developing prac-
tices between craft, engineering and digital technologies. In-
deed, important social dimensions also emerges from these
fabrication workshops [120, 125]. Some of these spaces have
a political agenda, valuing access to education, giving access
to power over technology, the future, and inequities [47, 63,
89, 130]. As an example, many spaces host repair workshops
to encourage the act of *making* over the act of *consuming*
[100]. Some can be considered as “third places” [4, 125], a type
of social places independent to the workplace, school or the
home [95]. They allow the development of local communities
and are appreciated for the social and mutual care values they
allow between users [63, 130].

In the field of education, activities around fabrication, learn-
ing by doing, have proven to be particularly successful from
the youngest audience to university students [98, 100, 117,
143]. The activities allow for the learning of scientific, tech-
nical and creative concepts, while stimulating risk taking,
interest, participation and collaboration [46, 120, 143]. We
can indeed find making activities in US schools from Kinder-
garten to middle school, in schools of design and architecture
and in universities [1, 89, 116]. Special non profit organisa-
tions also focus on creating bridges between making and
education such as the *The Maker Ed*¹³ [100].

Beyond the mastery of tools, dexterity and concepts, fabrica-
tion projects promote the learning and mastery of a technical
language, the communication of one’s knowledge and prac-
tices [45, 85, 86], and also allow learners to develop a critical
view of their work, their position within a group, and the
impact of the technology on their environment [116, 143].

As a summary, today’s fabrication workshops are places that
welcome a wide audience, varying in degree of expertise,
professions and practices [17, 63]. Understanding the history
behind their development allows to understand the philo-
sophy and peculiarity of these places, in particular regarding
the spirit of sharing. This audience continues to grow as the
disciplines and knowledge tend to become more and more
accessible to anyone who wants to invent, make, create or
learn. While in much of the literature the term “makers” is
used to refer to people using this places, it does not refer to
one homogeneous population [57, 109] as they may not come

13: https://makered.org/
from the same cultural background [119], and may not be
the same people as the first hackers I talked about earlier,
but this philosophy of sharing and helping each other con-
tinues. These exchanges may happen physically through the
emergence of local communities gathering around events or
common projects, through the educational environment and
the teachings around the practices or through the charter of
the place which encourages to give back its knowledge to the
common [42, 63, 89].

## 2.3. Knowledge in fabrication workshops

After considering how a culture of knowledge sharing was
born from a hacker and DIY ethic and how this culture became
a foundation to today's workshops, I change perspective to
that of the individuals working in the fabrication workshops,
and how they interact with this knowledge related to fabrica-
tion. During a fabrication activity, throughout a project and
over a lifetime, each maker creates, uses and enriches them-
selves with a considerable amount of knowledge. From the
manipulation of a tool to its expertise, or from the reference
of an electronic component to the documentation of an entire
project, different kinds of information are used and some-
times shared between makers. In this section, I define this
knowledge and its various components. Then, I explain how
different elements of information are used, archived, shared
between makers, and reused, in the form of rich documents
that have been given a lot of different terms, and which I call
here knowledge resources.

### 2.3.1. Fabrication knowledge

There are many ways to describe knowledge. I approach here
the definition of knowledge related to fabrication domains
from a grid of general knowledge description provided by
Jong and Ferguson-Hessler [69]. These authors have built a
grid to define knowledge from a large literature review, taking
into account the different models of knowledge described in
various fields, and apply it in particular to the context of task completion. As shown Figure 2.9, knowledge is described according to 2 axes: the *type* of knowledge and the *quality* of the knowledge.

<figure><img src="image_11.png" /><figcaption>**Figure 2.9.**: Jong and Ferguson-Hessler describe knowledge according to two axis: type of knowledge and quality of knowledge.</figcaption></figure>

I define here the different categories of knowledge used in the fabrication domain from this grid, starting with the different *types*:

**Conceptual knowledge**

Conceptual knowledge is the knowledge of a fact, similar to the notion of declarative knowledge used in other fields. Applied to our context, in the case of fabrication, makers are exposed to many rules and parameters for the operation of machines and software. They also use different rules and physical principles. For example a statement like “the pattern used for filling in a 3D print affects the strength of the resulting object” is conceptual knowledge, and so is “$U = R.I$”.

**Strategic knowledge**

Strategic knowledge defines a plan of action, the knowledge of the sequence of actions required to complete a task. In our case, it would be the sequence of activities done within the scope of a project, or the sequence of operations constituting an activity.
### Procedural knowledge

Procedural knowledge is defined as the actions and manipulations that allow to go from one state to another. For example, in our case, making a soldering point, deburring a part, stripping a wire or starting a laser cut.

### Situational knowledge

Situational knowledge is defined as the knowledge of the context in which one finds oneself. Context allows information to be interpreted in one way or another. In the case of fabrication, context is particularly important because the stages of a project usually consist of a variety of activities. The use of the term "tool" or "cut", for example, is not the same in the context of design software as it is in a wood-working shop. The concept of "resistance" is not the same in the context of electronics, which in this case is a measure of the opposition of an object to an electric current, while in the context of a physical object it is the ability of that object to withstand a force applied to it.

The second axis of description is the quality of the knowledge, Jong et al. [69] identify 5 variables: *level of depth*, *structure*, *automation*, *modality* and *specificity*.

### Level of depth

Level of depth of knowledge is different between experts and novices. Experts have a *deep level* of knowledge and are able to approach a problem with a certain capacity of abstraction. Novices, on the other hand, tend to approach a problem at a *superficial level*, with a more basic representation.

### Structure

The structure of knowledge defines the way in which knowledge is internally represented, including how each concepts are connected to one another or not. Experts knowledge is *structured* in units (chunks) with connections between different concepts. On the other hand, the knowledge of novices is *structured* differently, as the concepts they know are isolated from each other.
### Automation

Novices and experts also have a different degree of knowledge, what Jong et al. [69] call *automation* of knowledge. This concept of *automation* is close to the concept of explicit vs tacit knowledge. The more the person is expert, the more the processes guiding their methodology are automated and tacit. On the contrary, novices tend to follow step-by-step reasoning, more explicit.

### Modality

The fourth variable of knowledge quality is the *modality*, that is the form in which this knowledge is represented, which can be a text, a picture, a video, a diagram, etc.

### Specificity

The last variable determines whether the knowledge is general or domain *specific*. In the case of fabrication, for example, the use of Vector Graphics is not specific to the field of laser cutting, but the mastery of its basics is necessary for the operation of the machine.

<figure><img src="image_12.png" /><figcaption>**Figure 2.10.** Illustrations of our example</figcaption></figure>

Let's now take an example in a fabrication context to analyse the different types of knowledge present and required to find an answer to a question. Figure 2.10 is a schematic representation of a simple electronic circuit, with the following question: what is the value of the current at the output of the led?
**Conceptual:**

There are several elements in this schematic: a breadboard, a led, two resistors, a power supply. The knowledge of these elements is important to understand their different properties.

**Strategic:**

Different courses of action can be chosen here to solve the problem: calculate the current with Ohm's law or build the circuit and measure the current with an ammeter.

**Procedural:**

If the second strategy is chosen, the procedure will be to first find the components, make the connections, turn on the circuit and measure the current with the measuring tool.

**Situational:**

The knowledge of the specific context informs about the way the components may function or not. For example, it requires situational knowledge to notice that a component looks like it is not properly put into the breadboard, or that it looks worn and possibly broken.

**Modality:**

The schematic also has different modalities of knowledge: visual, in schematic form, of different components, and textual concerning the voltage value of the power supply.

If an expert has no trouble finding the answer to the question quickly, the novice, faced with the same schema will be exposed to much more difficulties, because he will lack conceptual, strategic, procedural and situational knowledge. Furthermore, an expert will have no trouble understanding that Figure 2.10 is equivalent to the schemes in Figure 2.11a and Figure 2.11b.

This example is specific to the case of electronics, but it can be applied to a more complex fabrication project involving knowledge about different kinds of tools, materials and their properties and particular processes.

<figure><img src="image_13.png" /><figcaption>**Figure 2.11.** Illustrations of our example</figcaption></figure>
Understanding the way makers use different types of know-
ledge has an impact on the way it is represented. The inverse
is also true since the way knowledge is represented has an
impact on how makers understand a problem.

2.3.2. Knowledge resources in fabrication

Fabrication workshops are, as described in section 2.2, places
of sharing [37], where makers learn, create, customise and
invent, in short, create new knowledge. Thus, one of the
parallel practices to fabrication is the transfer and sharing of
knowledge.

<figure><img src="image_14.png" /><figcaption>**Figure 2.12.:** A view of the Sorbonne University's Fablab, structured as an open space</figcaption></figure>

Knowledge exchanges can happen person to person in fabric-
ation workshops. subsection 2.2.1 explained that their archi-
tecture is generally designed so that everyone has a view of
the activity of others [8, 39, 125], and the communal culture
of these places encourages curiosity, feedback and mutual aid
[37, 61, 125, 130]. Figure 2.12 shows the prototyping space of
the Fablab at Sorbonne Université, which is structured as an
openspace. In these places, it is common for someone more
experienced in a given practice to verbally demonstrate and
explain a process or a principle to someone else. During group
work, makers share what they have done or plan to do, and in
the case of teaching or training, someone will demonstrate to
a novice how to use a machine or software [35, 100]. If such
direct exchanges have the advantage of promoting a better understanding [61], another part of knowledge transfers are done indirectly, for a later reuse by oneself or by others in the form of knowledge resources.

### Elements of knowledge

It is common in any practice to create content about one's work in the form of a note, an archive for oneself in order to remember a step, a parameter, or to draw a sketch. This is also the case in the context of fabrication workshops, where makers use a set of concepts and proceed to manipulations, which are important for them to keep in memory for the continuation of their work [151]. subsection 2.3.1 showed that this content can be of different *modalities*: it can be visual as makers create diagrams, record screenshots, take pictures and videos of a stage of construction or of the result of a process [102, 132]. These elements of knowledge can also take the form of parameters saved in the software, such as the speed, frequency and power of a laser for cutting and engraving a given material for instance, or CAD presets [49].

The element can also be physical, as in most of the workshops, managers or makers leave physical examples projects or samples which are displayed next to the machines with which it was made [8, 39]. As an example, Figure 2.13 shows a board with physical examples illustrating the percentage of filling density and the time the machine took to print the object. Figure 2.14 shows a shelve where 3D printed objects are displayed to serve as example of use of different techniques.

<figure><img src="image_15.png" /><figcaption>**Figure 2.13.** Physical examples of the result for different values of filling density of 3D printed objects.</figcaption></figure>

<figure><img src="image_16.png" /><figcaption>**Figure 2.14.** Physical examples of 3D printed objects.</figcaption></figure>

These elements of knowledge focus on a very specific and concrete type of knowledge, such as which parameter settings to use with a certain material to get to a specific result.
## Knowledge resources

Knowledge resources tend to combine elements of knowledge of different types (*procedural, strategic, ...*). The more different knowledge types are captured in the resources, the more likely someone will be able to fabricate a described artefact or to learn about various pitfalls when doing a certain type of activity. For this, some makers create and use knowledge resources in the form of digital documents that feature the evolution of the different stages of a project, including the materials and techniques used, and views of the result of the process.

Many works refer to these resources as *project documenta-
tions*, or *portfolios* depending on the context, but these terms
are used in different ways in the literature, sometimes en-
compassing online instructions [91, 138], sometimes referring
more to a working tool, allowing to keep track and serving
as a reflection and communication support [13, 27, 135, 138],
including mistakes made throughout the project, or not [138].
In that sense, their definition is sometimes close to the one
of the *tutorial* or *how-to*, in which makers present their pro-
ject in a linear step-by-step format, in a recipe style [132]
for others to reproduce the project [112]. On the other hand,
*tutorials* also seem to go beyond a simple list of instructions
in some cases. Indeed, authors integrate the story of their
project in a narrative style [132], sometimes with a humor-
ous tone [67], sometimes including mistakes and problems
encountered [132]. As an example, Figure 2.15 shows the in-
troduction of an online *tutorial*, where the author explains
the context in which she decided to build this project, and
address herself directly to the reader.

Similarly to the variety of terminology they adopt, the reas-
ons why makers create these knowledge resources are plural.
Sometimes, documenting one's project is mandatory, while
sometimes the motivation comes from the makers themselves.
Indeed, some fabrication workshops encourage the creation of
knowledge resources, in particular Fablabs, which include the
creation of *project documentations* in their charter. The goal of
these *documentations* is to allow others to reproduce any pro-
ject that has been made with the workshop's resources [50].
In the context of learning, these documents are of particular

<figure><img src="image_17.png" /><figcaption>**Figure 2.15.:** Crochet Knitting Clock Instructables by Lina Maria - Introduction

https://www.instructables.com/Crochet-Knitting-Clock-</figcaption></figure>
value. Peppler et al. [102] reported that most of educational
makerspaces consider the practice of *documentation* and *port-
folio* creation as important for them. These *documentations* can take the form of pictures of finished works or work in progress, videos, or documents that can be shared privately or globally on social networks or platforms dedicated to DIY practices.

The practice of creating knowledge resources is therefore
often required by the environment where the makers work,
however, some makers choose to share their knowledge on a
voluntary basis. Indeed, building a knowledge resource can
also be a mean to share one's project via the Internet in the
form of *How-Tos* or *tutorials*, through personal blogs [132, 138,
141] or specialised websites. *Tutorials* or *how-to's* are used to
explain a process, and in the case of fabrication activities, to
replicate an object by detailing the steps, tools and materials
needed to reproduce it. *Tutorials* take different forms, mainly
web pages [77, 131, 132] and video tutorials [24], which can be
hosted on *Youtube*. As an example, Figure 2.16 shows screen-
shots of a video tutorial made by the DIY video creator and
musician "Look Mum No Computer". In his videos, he shows
how to build electronic music instruments and DIY features,
through his own eccentric style, mixing electronic music and
super dynamic editing. If the latter proposes video tutorials
in a remunerative optics, as a professional youtuber, in ad-
dition to some of these paying contents on *Patreon*, others
have a completely altruistic approach. This is the case, for
example, of the fine musician S8JFOU¹⁴ who creates his own
synthesizers and provides, on his website, schematics, plans
and explanations for building them, in a more sober but no
less intimate way.

14: https://www.s8jfou.com/synth

Online platforms for sharing knowledge resources

Since the 2000s, many specialised websites around hands-on
fabrication have appeared. Makers visit these platforms to
find inspiration, or solutions to a specific issue they encounter
[100, 115, 132].
<figure><img src="image_18.png" /><figcaption>**Figure 2.16.:** This figure shows screenshots of a video of the DIY video creator and musician @LOOKMUMNOCOMPUTER, where he demonstrates how to build an animatronic controlled with the sounds generated by his synthesizer - https://youtu.be/U5qH MgZJ2w4.</figcaption></figure>

Some platforms offer tools to create and host projects dedicated to the Do-It-Yourself universe as it is the case for *Instructables* [21, 77]. Figure 2.17 shows the list of steps of a tutorial hosted on this website.

Some online platforms are specialised around specific practices or communities [77], such as the *Arduino* website which offers to host projects created with the micro-controller, or the *Thingiverse* website which allows to host model files of three-dimensional objects intended for 3D printing or laser cutting accompanied by more or less complete descriptions [5]. These online platforms also serve as a support for exchange between the author of a project and the interested public [115], by the mean of comment features, as shown in Figure 2.17, thus allowing the creation of communities around these platforms [70, 100, 131].

The practice of knowledge resource creation is varied as much by the motivations of its author as by their format and style and by the audience that will use this knowledge resource.

<figure><img src="image_19.png" /><figcaption>**Figure 2.17.:** Crochet Knitting Clock Instructables by Lina Maria - Steps</figcaption></figure>

## 2.4. Conclusion

This chapter introduced fabrication workshops through their history. Their evolution from a technological point of view is explained by the democratisation of computers throughout the second half of the 20th century. These advances have led to the automation of industrial machinery, the invention
of additive manufacturing and the emergence of computer-
aided design software, making the prototyping of objects
accessible and fast. Fabrication workshops are associated
with an ethic that also has its roots in the philosophy of the
first hackers, eager to take power over new technologies. This
unique culture of mutual aid, collaboration and sharing still
persists today.

Most of today’s workshops are open to all, welcoming a di-
verse and multidisciplinary audience, from designers to engin-
eers and from experts to novices. These workshops are valued
for the educational and social opportunities they provide by
bringing together these diverse people in one place. Know-
ledge sharing is important in the context of fabrication, and
the creation, use and sharing of knowledge resources related
to the projects that can be done in the workshop is a common
goal, whether in a learning setting or in a desire to return
knowledge to the community.

However, introducing the richness of these workshops, and es-
tablishing the importance of creating knowledge resources in
this context raises a question: what are the objectives behind
these resources, and what are the barriers to which makers
may be exposed while creating them? Depending on the con-
text in which they are created and used and the variety of
individuals who might create and use them, these objectives
may vary. For example, the motivations for creating these re-
sources can be intrinsic or extrinsic depending on the context,
and the choices in the way they are presented vary accord-
ing to the author's objective. Prior work has looked into the
motivations and reasons for creating such resources and has
identified main challenges regarding their creation. The aim
of the next chapter is to take a closer look at the variety of
objectives behind the creation of knowledge resources. In
particular, I investigate the following questions:

► What are the different objectives of knowledge resources related to fabrication projects?

► What are the challenges that makers face when creating these resources?

► How may these objectives and challenges inform the design of tools to support makers in the creation of knowledge resources?
It is essential to understand the objectives of knowledge re-
sources and associated barriers to provide systems and tools
to help the creation, use and sharing of these resources.
# Creating knowledge resources from fabrication activities

## 3.

Knowledge exchanges are prevalent inside and outside the fabrication workshop. I introduced in Chapter 2 different ways of creating and sharing knowledge resources. Between video tutorials and project documentation, I illustrated that the terminology, the forms of resources and the ways of creating them vary. Creating, using, and sharing knowledge resources related to fabrication is a common practice across different domains, and research on this topic is therefore scattered across different communities. Indeed, the terminologies used to describe these resources differ between communities, and the objectives and challenges associated with these resources are not always clear.

The aim of this chapter is, first, to clarify these different aspects of knowledge resources by understanding the different objectives behind them, and how these objectives may overlap. Second, I seek to identify the challenges that makers face when creating them, and whether these vary depending on their objectives. For instance, what are the difficulties of a maker wanting to create a tutorial from their project, and are they different from those of a student documenting their research throughout a study project? Finally, I discuss how these objectives and challenges inform the design of tools to support makers in the creation of knowledge resources.

This chapter is an extension of a work published in the IHM conference [106]. In this work, my co-authors and I conducted a literature review of 36 publications in HCI, education, and design addressing the topic of knowledge resources related to fabrication activities. Through this literature review, we identify four main objectives that these resources at least partially share. For each of these objectives, we identify a set of challenges from which we built a framework which

3.1 Methodology ... 34

3.2 Objectives and Challenges in the creation of knowledge resources ... 38

3.3 Using the framework to analyse tools ... 45

3.4 Discussion ... 57

3.5 Conclusion ... 62
allows to contrast various strategies for resource creation. After presenting the framework, we use it to introduce and analyse different tools aimed to support makers with the challenges they face at different moments of the creation of knowledge resources. From this analysis, we highlight a set of strategies that support given challenges, and we discuss opportunities for the design of tools to support makers in the creation of knowledge resources in fabrication workshops. We will conclude with the common need for all resources to be created during the fabrication project and the necessary support during the fabrication activity.

**3.1. Methodology**

We describe the methodology used to identify the articles in our literature review and how we identified the objectives and challenges. Figure 3.1 provides an overview of the different steps of our methodology.

**3.1.1. Definition of the search query**

We started our research from a corpus of 21 articles collected organically, i.e. articles that we found during a regular reading activity, by following the references in articles that we consulted, or by consulting the program of recent conferences. We then extracted all the keywords of each of these articles, to identify on the one hand the recurrent keywords and on the other hand, the declinations of certain keyword roots (e.g. "maker" corresponds to the keywords "maker community", "makerspace", ...). We then classified these keywords according to whether they identify the *CONTEXT* (eg. maker-space) or the *SUPPORT* (eg. documentation). The query is built following the logic: Keywords *subset* AND(SUPPORT(x, x *is a* SUPPORT), SUPPORT(y, y *is a* CONTEXT)), resulting in the following query:

("tutorial" OR "documentation" OR "documenting"
OR "knowledge sharing" OR "fabrication know-
ledge" OR "portfolio")
AND
("maker education" OR "digital fabrication" OR
<figure><img src="image_20.png" /><figcaption>**Figure 3.1.:** Overview of the different steps we followed to gather and analyse articles and create a framework of objectives and challenges for knowledge resource creation in the context of fabrication workshops.</figcaption></figure>

"maker community" OR "maker communities" OR "making culture" OR "maker culture" OR "fablab" OR "fab lab" OR "fabrication laboratory" OR "fabrication laboratories" OR "fab academy" OR "maker space" OR "makerspace")

This query (also shown in Figure 3.2) was performed on Scopus¹ using Publish or Perish² on 25/08/2022. It returned 139 results, including 1 duplicate and 6 articles already present in our corpus of 21, that is to say 132 new articles.

1. https://www.scopus.com/

2. https://harzing.com/resources/publish-or-perish
<figure><img src="image_21.png" /><figcaption>**Figure 3.2.:** Our search query includes all combinations of the terms support and context.</figcaption></figure>

### 3.1.2. Exclusion criteria

An early analysis of the title and abstract allowed us to exclude articles that did not meet the following criteria:

* article written entirely in English (3)

* long scientific article from a peer-reviewed conference or journal (32)

* article in pdf format (0)

* article corresponding to the context of fabrication workshops, to DIY (29)

* article studying the topic of knowledge resources (22)

* article referring to a study or a tool preceded or followed by a study (10)

The number of excluded articles according to each criterion is in parentheses.

This initial analysis resulted in the elimination of 93 articles. We then eliminated 24 additional articles that the filtering based on the abstract was not sufficient to identify according to our criteria. For example, the abstract did not mention
<table><caption>**Table 3.1.:** Comparison of the 36 articles in our literature review for each objective and challenge in our framework. Note: Only the challenges explicitly specified in each article are marked with a square.</caption><thead><tr><th>Objectives</th><th>Challenges</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Represent</td><td>Facilitate the creation of resources during the activity<br>Facilitate the creation of resources during the project</td></tr><tr><td>Reuse</td><td>Encourage the completeness of information<br>Encourage comprehensibility of information</td></tr><tr><td>Reflect</td><td>Reflect on one's strategy and progress<br>Reflect together</td></tr><tr><td>Communicate</td><td>Express one's knowledge and identity<br>Belong to a community</td></tr></tbody></table>

<figure><img src="image_22.png" /></figure>

clearly the context, or the presence of a study. In the end, our corpus contains 21 + 15 = 36 articles.

### 3.1.3. Corpus analysis strategy

To build our framework of objectives and challenges associated with knowledge resources, we proceeded in two steps. First, we conducted a screening of our initial corpus (21 articles) from which we defined a list of objectives related to knowledge resources. This first analysis then allowed us to carry out a thematic reading of the entire corpus (36 articles) to test and evaluate these objectives, and to identify challenges associated with each of these objectives. In the end, we consolidated our analysis into a framework of objectives and challenges with which each contribution can be described and compared, as shown in the Table 3.1.

### 3.1.4. Limitations

Some choices in our methodology introduced certain limitations. First, we wanted to collect a corpus representative of all the research fields addressing the subject of knowledge resources in fabrication workshops. We thus chose *Scopus*, which was the only database that did not restrict the number of characters of the query and which, because of its size, forced us to make a relatively closed query. Indeed, all the articles related to knowledge resources do not always specify *CONTEXT* in their keywords. Secondly, we wanted our query to be reproducible, and we therefore identified a set of the most frequent keywords. As a result of these choices, some
articles that could have been included in the corpus did not match this combination of keywords, as the terminological variety is rich. Nevertheless, this corpus has the advantage of being sufficiently varied to cover a wide range of research fields, which was our main criterion, and which allows us to identify a set of objectives from a rich field of problems.

## 3.2. Objectives and Challenges in the creation of knowledge resources

Our analysis revealed four objectives for knowledge resources in fabrication workshops: (1) **Represent a fabrication project**, (2) **Reuse one's work**, (3) **Support reflection**, and (4) **Communicate**. Depending on the context in which knowledge resources are created or used, only some of the objectives may apply. The Figure 3.3 illustrates how the objectives can overlap and provides examples of knowledge resources for which different objectives can be combined. We now present these 4 objectives and their corresponding challenges identified from our literature review.

<figure><img src="image_23.png" /><figcaption>**Figure 3.3.** The four identified objectives that makers can pursue when creating knowledge resources. **Represent** a fabrication project in some form is a transversal objective for all resources. More specific objectives are **Reuse**, **Reflect** and **Communicate**. The figure provides examples of resources for which objectives overlap differently.</figcaption></figure>
### 3.2.1. Represent a fabrication project

Representing a fabrication project is an objective that is transversal to all knowledge resources. Indeed, despite other objectives they may pursue, all these resources represent a fabrication project, i.e. they are the result of the transformation of a set of physical and virtual interactions taking place in parallel with the fabrication project.

The fabrication project is composed of a sequence of activities that generally take place in several locations of the workshop and are spread over a more or less long period of time (days/-months) depending on its scope. Thus, generating knowledge resources exposes makers to different challenges: the first one is to create the resources during the fabrication activity; the second one is to create them during the whole duration of the fabrication project.

**Fabrication project (subsection 2.2.1)**

> Fabrication projects can be described as a sequence of fabrication activities taking place inside the workshop, or outside the workshop, depending on whether they require the use of space or not.

**Facilitate the creation of resources during the activity.**

During activities in the workshop, fabrication and the creation of knowledge resources are two conflicting activities [32, 138], both cognitively and physically. When makers work in the workshop, they generally devote most of their attention to the task at hand. Documenting this task therefore requires them to shift their attention from fabrication to documentation [56], a costly process that often leads to forgetting to document. These oversights are especially frequent during problems that require effort to solve [45, 85], or in the case of problems urgent to fix.

Both the fabrication and documentation tasks also require physical manipulation on the part of the makers, especially with their hands. For example, makers may want to take pictures or videos of a specific manipulation involving both hands. Sometimes, such manipulations make the capture of information impossible or require the use of additional tools, such as tripods or mounting systems [24, 91]. These tools may require additional effort and time from the maker, to find them in the workshop, and set them up. Carter et al. [24] observed that these tools themselves sometimes conflict with the activity (as in the case of tripods for example) by causing obstructions or limiting movements necessary to the
manipulations. In addition, the necessary equipment is not always available or adapted to the needs of makers to easily take notes or capture visual traces [25]. It is therefore important to reduce the difficulties associated with the interference between documentation and fabrication, by making this task accessible and quick.

## Facilitate the creation of resources during the project

In addition to the difficulties associated with physical and cognitive constraints during the activity, makers are exposed to other barriers during the entire course of their project: Once the content is captured, they may have to find it again among their files, choose the right illustration or file, which requires special organisation or effort [27, 85, 138].

In particular, Tseng and Resnick [138] reported in an interview study, that this process involves the use of many tools and platforms to host the content captured, to edit separately the images and the text and to assemble the whole in a final resources. In addition of the tools, transforming and editing the resources also requires specific skills to modify, process the content, and possibly pass it on to others [77, 91, 138, 150]. Communicating a process also requires the ability to describe and show ideas whose concepts are sometimes automated which are difficult to convey visually or textually [45, 132, 151].

Thus, creating knowledge resources is a difficult task for makers [39, 138, 151], and time-consuming [39, 56, 77, 121, 138, 151]. Some makers consider this task secondary, boring and unnecessary to the completion of their fabrication project [24, 151]. Therefore, its creation is often done at the end of the project [56, 121, 138], compromising some of the objectives we detail next (See Reuse (subsection 3.2.2) and Reflection (subsection 3.2.3)), or not done at all [151].

### 3.2.2. Reuse one's work

One objective of knowledge resources is that they are built to be reused by others. Other makers can use them as inspiration [27, 70] in their own work, as a reference for understanding

**Automated knowledge**
(subsection 2.3.1)

Automated knowledge is close to the concept of explicit vs tacit knowledge. The more the person is expert, the more the processes guiding his methodology are automated and tacit. On the contrary, novices tend to follow step-by-step reasoning, more explicit.
the process or a particular technique [27, 41]. The knowledge
resources can be used as a starting point in the project [27,
32], and as a guide to replicate a process [38]. In the learn-
ing context, teachers can use the resources as an evaluation
tool, as they convey the rationale of the learners, their pro-
cedures and attempts [45, 85]. Enabling to reuse one's work
implies building knowledge resources that are complete and
comprehensible working tool for others. To be complete, the
resources must contain the necessary amount of information,
all the details and steps, and to be *comprehensible*, they must
be of sufficient quality to be correctly interpreted.

Encourage the completeness of information.

To enable someone else to understand the described process,
the resources must include the necessary amount of inform-
ation in sufficient detail [91, 144]. Similarly to a recipe, all
ingredients: tools, components, materials and references used
must be specified [94, 132, 144]. However, getting the right
level of detail is difficult for two main reasons. The first reason
is that it is complex to anticipate what information will be
used when creating resources; one must first establish what
use will be made of it [27, 32, 41], which may vary from per-
son to person and from context to context. The second reason
is that the content needed to describe the process may not
have been captured at the time of fabrication, because the
person forgot [45, 84, 138], did not feel it was important at
the time of the activity [32, 85], or the tools did not allow for
it [24]. This lack of detail is intensified when the steps in the
resources concern moments of bug, or abandoned or failed
attempts [45, 85, 138]. If the amount of detail is sufficient, it
sometimes happens that the frequency of the steps constitut-
ing the resources is insufficient and that all the steps are not
well explained [45], making the understanding of the process
difficult or not allowing to account for the actual reasoning
of the author [121, 144]. It is indeed sometimes useful or ne-
cessary to know the intermediate, unsuccessful steps that led
to a change of strategy in the process.
**Encourage comprehensibility of information.**

The understanding of a step by the persons who are reusing the resources is also impacted by the quality, clarity and consistency of the content describing the process [144]. Capturing visual content (image and video) plays an important role in how well the task is understood: the resolution must be sufficient and the lighting and point of view must be well adapted, which is sometimes not made possible by capture tools whose resolution is not sufficient or lacking in stability [24, 25, 91]. It also happens that elements are presented without context, that images or screenshots are not associated with a caption, or sometimes even that the texts associated with the images do not correspond [144].

**3.2.3. Support reflection**

When knowledge resources are built in parallel with the project, they become a support to see the progress of the fabrication project in real time. One of the reasons associated with the creation of knowledge resources is that they allow to keep track of the evolution of the fabrication project [11, 27, 39, 41, 45, 121, 135, 139, 151], allowing authors to refer to decisions made in the past [39, 135], either alone or with others.

**Reflect on one's strategy and progress.**

The knowledge resources can serve as a support for reflection during the activity [32, 54] and over the duration of the project, allowing for stepping back, considering the difficulties and problems encountered, the approaches and solutions found [20, 27, 32, 39, 68, 82, 91, 121, 139]. It also allows one to become aware of one's own progress [16, 27, 71, 121], and consider one's own practice [27, 115]. The creation of resources also helps to structure the stages of the project, to plan and organise future activities [16, 45, 68, 138, 151], coordinate with others involved in the project [27], and stay focused on the activity agenda [32, 138]. To enable the resources to support these reflections during the project, it is important
that the full range of steps and details are incorporated over
time [16, 84, 121, 135, 138].

Reflect together.

During projects involving multiple people, the resources can serve as a medium for reflection and discussion [32, 56, 135, 151], allowing the author to present his or her ideas in order to get help during the project and feedback from teachers, peers or experts. It is important that resources can support these exchanges around projects, for example by providing co-located or remote discussion spaces, through which opinions and advice from other makers can induce some decision making by offering new perspectives [27, 70, 77, 131, 132, 135].

**3.2.4. Communicate**

The last objective associated with knowledge resources is
to allow the makers to communicate and create an identity
within a larger community by disseminating their work. In-
deed, sharing one's work allows makers to communicate
about their skills, to create an online identity, and to generate
a community of people interested in the same things.

Express one's knowledge and identity.

Knowledge resources provide an account of the efforts, diffi-
culties encountered, and techniques undertaken by a maker
[27, 135]. They allow one to communicate the knowledge and
techniques used and mastered [68, 70, 71, 91, 121], particularly
necessary in a learning setting to attest to one's mastery. Com-
municating their knowledge also allows makers to express
their identity and place in society, as a way to be recognised
by their work, skills, and values [70, 71, 82], and allows them
to tell their story through the project [101, 115, 135]. Thus,
it is important for makers to be able to appropriate these
knowledge resources so that they can be valued outside the
workshop or teaching context [101].
## Belong to a community.

Finally, the creation of knowledge resources can allow their author to integrate a community of people with the same passions, interests, practices [101], gathered around the same philosophy, culture of mutual help and sharing [131, 139, 150, 151]. The resources embody the DIY and hacker ethic (Chapter 2) with a willingness to help, build together, and make for others [20, 27, 38, 39, 70, 71, 82, 115]. By acting as a medium for discussion, the resources can be engaging, stimulate exchange around fabrication practices, inspire future projects [16, 70, 101]. Visitors can suggest improvements to the project [39, 70, 94, 101, 121, 132], ask questions or seek clarification from the author [77, 132]. Finally, the resources can be used to illustrate activities, tools, components, accessible in the workshop environment [20, 39, 68] and to share experiences between different workshops [16].

### 3.2.5. Conclusion

This section presented the results of our literature review to identify 4 objectives associated with the different knowledge resources produced by makers. Despite their variety, the reasons and the context in which they are made, these resources have one common objective:

* **Representing a fabrication project:** Whether they are looking to create a video, publish a tutorial on *In-structable*, or feed their portfolio as part of a teaching assignment, makers are exposed to common processes. They must collect content during their fabrication activity and create a document from the different steps of their projects.

We also identified 3 other objectives that knowledge resources enable:

* **Reuse one's work:** The resources can help others to understand the procedures and strategies used by the author, so they can reproduce the project, or assess the rationale and expertise of the maker.

**Variety in knowledge resources**
(subsection 2.3.2)

*We saw in Chapter 2 examples of variety of knowledge resources that makers may create from their projects.*
* **Support reflection:** The resources can be used a tool to follow the progress of a project, keep track of important steps, work and coordinate with collaborators.

* **Communicate:** The resources can be a way to disseminate one's work and identity over the Internet, exchange with others and feel recognised by a community outside of the local place.

From these objectives we identified 8 challenges associated with the creation of knowledge resources. In the next section, we will demonstrate how to use our framework as a mean to describe different tools for the creation of knowledge resources, and highlight strategies used by these tools to support makers for their objectives and given challenges.

## 3.3. Using the framework to analyse tools

In this section, we present a selection of tools supporting makers in the creation of knowledge resources that we found in the literature. First, we demonstrate how to use our framework to describe these tools based on the objectives and challenges they support. Then, we show how our framework can highlight the different strategies of these tools to support each of these challenges. Table 3.2 illustrates how our framework describes each tool when looking at its columns, and which of the challenges are supported by a given tool, when looking at its lines.

### 3.3.1. Tools to support makers in the creation of knowledge resources

Knowledge resource creation involves the use of various tools to capture, edit and share knowledge [138], and most workshops are not equipped with dedicated tools to facilitate the creation of these resources [102]. However, past research has proposed a variety of tools to support makers facing the challenges that we described in section 3.2. To demonstrate how to use our framework as a descriptive instrument, we made
a selection of 8 tools from literature that we chose for the variety of objectives and challenges they aim to support. For example, some are made to build tutorials, while others are made for an educational purpose.

We now describe these 8 tools using our framework of objectives and challenges. We distinguish software solutions and hardware solutions. The Software solutions focus on supporting makers during the transformation and representation of the knowledge resources. Hardware solutions also provide means to capture content for the resources. Hardware solutions are more numerous, thus we divide them into two categories: fixed tools (documentation station) vs mobile tools (wearable tools).

## Software solutions

<figure><img src="image_24.png" /><figcaption>**Figure 3.4.:** Software solutions enable makers to edit and transform the knowledge resources</figcaption></figure>
## Build-In-Progress (BiP) [135]

Build-In-Progress (BiP) is an online application built to publish the steps of an ongoing project, to keep track of the process and to get feedback as the project progresses. The steps are made of images, videos and text, and can be organised in a tree, in order to visualise the whole project including unsuccessful or abandoned attempts (Figure 3.4). Thus, BiP facilitates the creation of resources during the project, helps to reflect on one's strategy and progress and reflect together. The tool is available online and visitors can comment on others projects, give or get help from the community. The site (which is no longer accessible today) allowed the makers to belong to a community of the users of BiP.

<figure><img src="image_25.png" /></figure>

## Project Reflection Tool (PRT) [32]

Project Reflection Tool (PRT) is a web-based platform created for designers, shared among several collaborators and allowing a visualisation of the progress of a project over time. It is based on a set of pre-structured elements including Events, Sub-events, and Notes that designers can create as the project progresses. The resources are thus structured and can be visualised both in the form of a timeline and in the form of web pages. PRT is specifically designed to reflect on one's strategy and progress and reflect together on collaborative projects, it facilitates the creation of resources during the project by simplifying the process thanks to a pre-designed format and structure, and by offering a direct visualisation of the resources.

<figure><img src="image_26.png" /></figure>

## Hardware solutions (Fixed)

One strategy is the use of documentation stations (Figure 3.5). It consists of installing interfaces inside the workshop to support the makers in the creation of knowledge resources. These documentation stations, are generally at least equipped with cameras to capture images and videos of an object or a prototype [72]. The presence of these stations aims to reinforce the propensity to think about documenting and help providing
nice angles to capture visual project traces, while freeing the
hands of the makers [72]. Different tools in the literature are
based on this strategy of stations:

<figure><img src="image_27.png" /><figcaption>**Figure 3.5.:** Some workshops provide fixed stations to capture content from fabrication activities.</figcaption></figure>
## DoDoc [55]

DoDoc is a tool intended for an educational setting to capture images, videos, and sound. This tool is modular and adaptable to facilitate the creation of resources during the activity. Cameras and lights can be attached at different positions and a remote controller allows the trigger of the capture. The interface is associated with a web application on which the content is automatically uploaded, thus facilitating the creation of resources during the project. This application allows in particular the direct visualisation of the captured content, with the aim to allow to reflect on one's strategy and progress during the fabrication activity.

<figure><img src="image_28.png" /></figure>

## Protobooth Oulu [11]

In a similar way, Protobooth Oulu is a station that includes multiple cameras to capture different points of views of an object. Makers can use a RFID card to easily trigger the capture of pictures from the station, facilitating the creation of resources during the activity. The content is automatically uploaded to a website as entries that makers can edit later on, therefore the tool also facilitates the creation of resources during the project. This tool was also designed for educational use, within the Oulu Fablab, and allows for easy capture and creation throughout the project by making the content accessible to makers and allow them to reflect on one's strategy and progress. The authors also highlight the ease of sharing the content captured by Protobooth Oulu from the website interface to allow makers to reflect together and communicate.

<figure><img src="image_29.png" /></figure>
FabNavi [140]

Another tool of our selection is FabNavi. Unlike the two previous ones which rather focus on reflection, this station creates visual instructions for assembly process, resources allowing to *reuse one's work*. The station is based on a camera located on top of a desk, and a projector. During an assembly activity, the makers can take top view photos of the different steps they are working on, and the steps can then be projected back onto the desk. The application saves a series of steps as top view images, and are shared with others so makers can reproduce these steps remotely.

<figure><img src="image_30.png" /></figure>

Spin [139]

Finally, Spin is an interface based on an actuated turntable, which allows makers to take 360-degrees animations of an object. The aim of this platform is to document the states of a project at the end of work sessions, as to show its evolution through time. The turntable is connected to a mobile application to trigger the capture of the 360-degrees animation. Spin also comes with a web application to visualise the different animations created through time, and allows makers to *communicate* by sharing these animations on social networks such as Twitter and Facebook.

<figure><img src="image_31.png" /></figure>

Hardware solutions (Mobile)

A different strategy to documentation stations is to equip makers with devices that facilitate capture during fabrication activities (Figure 3.6). These devices have the advantage, unlike the stations, of allowing the mobility of users.

One strategy is the use of smartphones which most makers are already equipped with.
<figure><img src="image_32.png" /><figcaption>**Figure 3.6.:** Some workshops provide mobile devices to capture content from fabrication activities.</figcaption></figure>

### Document-While-Doing (DwD) [91]

Document-While-Doing is a mobile application to take pictures and record sound annotations that end up in a project repository. Each project is associated with a web-page automatically generated, similarly to Protobooth Oulu [11]. Furthermore, the application features an option to automatically reduce the size of the images to be included in the web-page.

However an approach based on smartphones requires the makers to hold them, limiting manipulations with the hands. An alternative is to use head-mounted capture tools:

### ShowHow [25]

ShowHow captures images and videos directly from Google Glasses or a tablet, facilitating the manipulation of objects with the hands, while transferring the captured content directly to an editing interface, thus allowing both to facilitate the creation of resources during the activity and during the project. By enabling first-person perspective capture, and supporting tutorial formatting with annotations and file attachments, ShowHow also encourages the completeness of information and comprehensibility of information.

<figure><img src="image_33.png" /></figure>

<figure><img src="image_34.png" /></figure>
<table><caption>**Table 3.2.:** Analysis of tools through the framework of objectives and challenges</caption><thead><tr><th>Objectives</th><th>Challenges</th><th>DoDoc [55]<br>Protobooth [11]<br>FabNavi [140]<br>Spin [139]<br>DWD [91]<br>ShowHow [25]<br>BiP [135]<br>PRT [32]</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td rowspan="2">Represent</td><td>Facilitate the creation of resources during the activity</td><td>■ ■ ■</td></tr><tr><td>Facilitate the creation of resources during the project</td><td>■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■</td></tr><tr><td rowspan="2">Reuse</td><td>Encourage the completeness of information</td><td>■</td></tr><tr><td>Encourage comprehensibility of information</td><td>■</td></tr><tr><td rowspan="2">Reflect</td><td>Reflect on one's strategy and progress</td><td>■ ■</td></tr><tr><td>Reflect together</td><td>■</td></tr><tr><td rowspan="2">Communicate</td><td>Express one's knowledge and identity</td><td>■</td></tr><tr><td>Belong to a community</td><td>■</td></tr></tbody></table>

### 3.3.2. Strategies to support the 4 objectives

We selected a total of 8 tools highlighting the objectives and challenges that each one aims to address. Our framework also enables to highlight the different strategies of these tools used for each objective by looking at each row of the table 3.2. We now discuss these tools by objective to identify different strategies to support the challenges associated with a given objective.

**Represent a fabrication project:**

<table><thead><tr><th>Challenges</th><th>DoDoc [55]<br>Protobooth [11]<br>FabNavi [140]<br>Spin [139]<br>DWD [91]<br>ShowHow [25]<br>BiP [135]<br>PRT [32]</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Facilitate the creation of resources during the activity</td><td>■ ■ ■</td></tr><tr><td>Facilitate the creation of resources during the project</td><td>■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■</td></tr></tbody></table>

First, we observe that despite their variety, all of these tools address the transversal objective: "Represent a fabrication project", particularly the challenge "Facilitate the creation of resources during the project". Indeed, they have in common to simplify certain stages necessary to create a representation of knowledge resources from the content captured by the makers.

**Strategies: Facilitate creation during the project**

* Providing features to support the edition and process of the content captured

* Automating part of the creation (pregenerate, transfer, content processing)
To support makers during the transformation steps following the capture of content from fabrication, one strategy is to **provide features to support the edition and process of the content captured** toward complete knowledge resources. These resources can be in the form of a document or a web page in the case of PRT, ShowHow, Protobooth Oulu, and DwD. They also can take the form of trees representing the steps through time as in the case of Spin, PRT, FabNavi and BiP, and videos or animations in the case of ShowHow and Spin.

Another strategy is to **automate part of the creation** as done by DwD and Protobooth Oulu which automatically generate a web Page featuring the content captured, that makers can enrich later on. DwD also integrates a tool to automatically reduce the size of images aimed to be included in the final resources. Some of these tools also facilitate the step of transfer of content, by sending the captured content directly to a centralised space. This retrieval and transfer step is a considerable cost for makers [138] and automating it is a time and effort saver.

As a way to facilitate the creation of resources during the activity, we saw that most of our selected tools **incorporate a capture device**. These tools allow the capture of images and videos from different angles, through a modular interface in the case of DoDoc, tabletop camera in the case of FabNavi, multiple cameras in the case of Protobooth Oulu, 360-degrees views in the case of Spin, and Google glasses in the case of ShowHow. Providing makers with equipment at hand to capture content is a good way to support this challenge and has the advantage of **freeing the hands** of the makers during manipulations, one of the first difficulties during the fabrication activity.

## Strategies: Facilitate creation during the activity

* Providing capture tools inside the workshop

* Enabling hand-free control

## Reuse one's work:

<table><thead><tr><th>Challenges</th><th>DoDoc [55]<br>Protobooth [11]<br>FabNavi [140]<br>Spin [139]<br>DWD [91]<br>ShowHow [25]<br>BiP [135]<br>PRT [32]</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Encourage the completeness of information</td><td>■</td></tr><tr><td>Encourage comprehensibility of information</td><td>■</td></tr></tbody></table>
Two tools of our selection address the objective *Reuse one's work*: ShowHow [25] and FabNavi [140]. They have in common to create tutorials so that others can reproduce the project. As such, their strategy to *encourage the comprehensibility of information*, is to **acquire good quality visual content**. They differ in the sense that ShowHow allows that by capturing content from a first person perspective, while FabNavi takes a series of top views, **providing the steps in an homogeneous way**.

Both their strategy is to **make the capture easy and at hand** so the makers are less inclined to miss a step of the procedure. Therefore, they *encourages completeness of information* by contributing to a greater frequency in the captured steps. ShowHow also allows makers to **add annotations, links and attachments to the resources** in its editing interface.

## Support reflection:

<table><thead><tr><th>Challenges</th><th>DoDoc [55]</th><th>Protobooth [11]</th><th>FabNavi [140]</th><th>Spin [139]</th><th>DWD [91]</th><th>ShowHow [25]</th><th>BiP [135]</th><th>PRT [32]</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Reflect on one's strategy and progress</td><td>■</td><td>■</td><td>■</td><td>■</td><td>■</td><td>■</td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td>Reflect together</td><td></td><td>■</td><td>■</td><td>■</td><td>■</td><td>■</td><td></td><td></td></tr></tbody></table>

Six of the tools in our selection are designed to support the reflection of makers by keeping traces of the process. To do that, the strategy of PRT and BiP is to allow the maker to create a **representation in the form of a tree** of the various paths taken during the project, which is made available to other participants, locally in the case of PRT and via the internet in the case of BiP. This strategy allows to make visible the paths that may not have been successful, in order to enable makers to keep track of what did not work. DwD and Protobooth Oulu adopt a more **classic web based representation** of the content captured, while Spin simplifies the format to a **simple animation**, making it easy to generate resources at the end of each fabrication activity. DoDoc takes a different approach to allow makers to *reflect on one's strategy and progress* and encourages reflection during the fabrication activity

**Strategies: Encourage the comprehensibility of information**

* Enabling the capture of good quality content and homogeneous content

**Strategies: Encourage the completeness of information**

* Providing equipment at hand to maximise the frequency with which content is captured

* Providing editing features to support the addition of annotations and file attachments

## Reflect on one's strategy and progress

* Considering different representations (tree, web page, 360 degrees animations)

* Providing direct access of the captured content
by providing a direct access of the content captured by displaying it on screen right next to the station.

To *Reflect together*, the web based strategies adopted by PRT, BiP, DwD and Protobooth Oulu allow to generate discussions and get feedback on the work as the project progresses by the means of **comment sections**.

### Reflect together

* Providing comment sections on the different steps of the resources to get feedback during the advancement

### Communicate:

<table><thead><tr><th>Challenges</th><th>DoDoc [55]</th><th>Protobooth [11]</th><th>FabNavi [140]</th><th>Spin [139]</th><th>DWD [91]</th><th>ShowHow [25]</th><th>BiP [135]</th><th>PRT [32]</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Express one's knowledge and identity</td><td>■</td><td>■</td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td>Belong to a community</td><td></td><td>■</td><td>■</td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td></tr></tbody></table>

One way to allow makers to communicate with their knowledge resources, is to make them available on the Internet.

This is the case of Protobooth Oulu, DwD and BiP which provide an online platform to host the resources and Spin which enables to share content on social networks. Because of the web page format, Protobooth Oulu and DwD provide space for makers to add narratives to the resources and therefore to *express one's knowledge and identity*. However, the content is still hosted on the Fablab's website, limiting the opportunity to *belong to a community*, unless the website is particularly popular. On the opposite side, Spin allows for direct sharing on social networks, favouring the appropriation of the resources by the makers, but does not provide room for narrative. Similarly, BiP allowed the makers to *belong to a community* by providing a space for comments and feedback, but this community was made up only of users of BiP.

#### Express one's knowledge and identity

* Providing space for the maker's narrative

* Enabling appropriation of the resources by the maker

#### Belong to a community

* Enabling the resources to be shared on larger community platforms

* Enabling community discussions and feedback

### 3.3.3. Conclusion

In this section, we have adopted the framework introduced in section 3.2 to show how it can be used to analyse tools for the creation of knowledge resources.
<table><caption>**Table 3.3.** Summary of the strategies used by our selection of tools to support the creation of knowledge resources.</caption><thead><tr><th>Represent</th><th>Reuse</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td><strong>Facilitate creation during the activity</strong><br>Providing capture tools inside the workshop<br>Enabling hand-free control</td><td><strong>Encourage the comprehensibility of information</strong><br>Enabling the capture of good quality content and homogeneous content</td></tr><tr><td><strong>Facilitate creation during the project</strong><br>Providing features to support the edition and process of the content captured<br>Automating part of the creation (pregenerate, transfer, content processing)</td><td><strong>Encourage the completeness of information</strong><br>Providing equipment at hand to maximise the frequency with which content is captured<br>Providing editing features to support the addition of annotations and file attachments</td></tr><tr><td><strong>Reflect</strong><br><strong>Reflect on one's strategy and progress</strong><br>Considering different representations (tree, web page, 360 degrees animations)<br>Providing direct access of the captured content</td><td><strong>Communicate</strong><br><strong>Express one's knowledge and identity</strong><br>Providing space for the maker's narrative<br>Enabling appropriation of the resources by the maker</td></tr><tr><td><strong>Reflect together</strong><br>Providing comment sections on the different steps of the resources to get feedback during the advancement</td><td><strong>Belong to a community</strong><br>Enabling the resources to be shared on larger community platforms<br>Enabling community discussions and feedback</td></tr></tbody></table>

Then, we used our framework to highlight the strategies of each of these tools to support a given challenge. This second analysis allows us to establish a list of strategies used by these tools for a given challenge which we summarise in Table 3.3.

This list of identified strategies is not intended to be exhaustive as it is drawn from a selection of tools of our choice. Establishing a complete list of existing strategies to support makers facing given challenges is a research direction to explore, which we discuss in the Chapter 6. However, highlighting this sample of strategies already allows us to outline some avenues of reflection.

In the next section, we discuss these different strategies and establish some research directions around the design of tools to support the creation of knowledge resources.
## 3.4. Discussion

We have highlighted some strategies to support makers in the creation of knowledge resources. What emerges is that these different strategies focus on one of the four steps of resource creation: capture, transformation, representation and dissemination of the resources.

Many strategies focus on the challenges present in the first two steps:

* content **capture**, which takes place in the fabrication space during the activity, essentially based on hardware technologies,

* content **transformation**, which is integrated in parallel with the fabrication project, and based on software technologies.

Indeed, these are the two steps requiring the most effort from the makers, and being transversal to all resources.

The rest of the strategies consist in supporting the challenges related to the more specific objectives which happen during the representation and dissemination steps:

* the **representation** of the resources, which can take different formats, and provide interactive features such as comment sections,

* the **dissemination** of the resources, which can be held locally, or shared on the Internet.

In this section, we aim to guide the conception of new tools. We discuss different implications that emerge from our analysis of both the tools and our literature review around these moments in the life of the resources. We first discuss implications for capture and transformation to establish directions for supporting the most challenges. Second, we discuss the different needs related to the representation and dissemination of the resources, which motivate a need for interoperability between tools.
### 3.4.1. Capturing and transforming the resources

We have seen that many of the challenges are related to the fact that it is difficult to create the resources during the fabrication activities, and over the course of the project. Indeed, it is necessary to (1) *Encourage the completeness of information* (subsection 3.2.2) and to avoid oversights, and for (2) *Support reflection* (subsection 3.2.3) as a means of taking a step back from the work in progress. Therefore, the strategies used by the different tools are sometimes similar and focus on making resource creation easier for makers, both during the activity (the capture of content) and over the duration of the project (the transformation of content).

#### Capturing content

Several strategies that we have highlighted consist in supporting the makers by providing them with capture tools to facilitate the creation during their fabrication activity. Most of them allow to free the hands of the makers, which is an essential obstacle to the creation of knowledge resources. The availability of tools in the workshop also seems to have the advantage of maximising the frequency with which content is captured by users, avoid them to forget important steps, and therefore favour the completeness of the information. Common capture tools can also be used to capture content of good quality, and in a homogeneous way, facilitating the comprehensibility of the information.

We have seen that these solutions can consist of equipping the workshop with documentation stations, or providing the makers with wearable capture devices. Stations have the advantage to materialise in space, the time for the creation of resources. They also make it possible to “celebrate design moments” by generating exchanges between the makers around the tool [54] and thus to *Support reflection*. However, these stations do not allow to follow the makers in their movements in the workshop. This can be achieved by providing the maker with wearable capture devices.
The main challenge is to determine a good compromise between
integrating the tools into a person's workflow, maintaining
high visibility to serve as a frequent reminder, while not im-
peding the activities of the makers.

Transforming content

All the tools of our selection facilitate the creation of the
resources by **integrating editing and content processing
features**. This is indeed one of the common strategies to *facil-
itate the creation of resources during the project*. Some of these
tools adopt editing features allowing the addition of external
files, links, to promote the *completeness of the information*.
Others allow a space for the author's narrative, important to
*express his identity*. Providing an interface to transform the
content is an essential strategy to support makers during the
transformation of the resources as this step requires the use
of many tools [138].

Another way to make resource creation easier is to delegate
some of the creating process to other people [32], create group
documentations [71] or **automate part of the process**. The
latter is, for example, the case with some of the tools we
presented, which automate the transfer of captured content
to the editing interface. Others also automate the processing
of the captured content as is the case with Document-While-
Doing [91] which reduces the resolution of images before
automatically integrating them into the documentation. Some
tools automatically generate entire resources as in Protobooth
Oulu [11], Spin [139] and PRT [32]. We study the potential
benefits and drawback of automation in chapters Chapter 5
and Chapter 6.

3.4.2. Representing and disseminating the resources

Our analysis shows that all the tools presented offer a com-
plete solution to support some challenges of knowledge re-
source creation. In addition to editing features, all the tools
in our selection offer support for the final representation of
the resources, which most of them provide in a given format
and constrain the resources to the tool itself. We also noticed that few of the tools focus on strategies regarding the dissemination of the knowledge resources. We discuss now the necessity for the tools to enable different representations of the resources, and how important it might be for these tools to provide more opportunities for dissemination.

Representing the resources

The way knowledge resources are **represented**, (video, image, structured document, ...) is central to the objectives that these resources supports, as they allow information to be conveyed in a certain way by imposing a particular structure [45, 96]. Thus, one of the strategies we observe is the constraint of the format of the resources to incite the makers to create resources according to certain codes or approaches. For example, the imposed format can be a linear step-by-step structure like the tutorial, or more tree-like, it can contain videos, sounds, links to external resources. The creation of the resources can also be framed by a particular methodology that supervisors or teachers can impose on the makers [45, 85], favouring the place of reflection, the details of the process, or the reproducibility. Oliver et al. [96] suggest for instance that the video format is better suited to describe experiences in an informal, emotional, and descriptive manner while writing allows for the development of analytical sides in a more academic and detailed manner [96].

Constraining the format can also make it possible to create the resources over the course of the project, as shown by the example of Spin [139] which by the simplicity of its format in the form of an animation at the end of each activity, encourages generating a record of the artefact's evolution over its entirety. However, a simple animation does not contain enough detail to allow for replication of the project.

In addition to the format, we saw that some of the tools provide **interactive features such as comment sections** to provide feedback from peers or teachers during the course of the project to *support reflection*, and as mean to *communicate* with a larger community at the end of the project.
Constraining the format and providing space for exchanges as been explored to guide and help makers towards a given objective, however, makers may want to pursue several objectives, and if a tool doesn't allow to generate different representations, it should therefore be interoperable with other tools to generate such representations.

## Disseminating the resources

Few strategies from our selection of tools address the aspect of dissemination of the resources. In particular, we have found that few works address the challenges of appropriating the resources and sharing them with a larger community, which is necessary for the objective “*Communicate*”. This is partially due to the fact that systems allowing the creation of knowledge resources allow access to these resources only through this system. These resources are then difficult to reuse with existing online platforms [20] such as *Instructables* for instance. Yet, Peppler and Keune and Keune, Peppler and Dahn indicate that **sharing the resources** could be an incentive for makers to create these resources [71, 101] and appropriate it to include other, more personal or social types of thinking [71]. Promoting **appropriation** of resources by makers so they can chose there own representation, add personal narratives and customise it, is therefore important for them to make the most of it individually. They should be able to benefit from the tool to create a representation of resources that could be customised, and shared under other formats and toward other communities than the local environment. For instance, the tool should allow the resources to be shared on specialised (*Instructables*, *Thingiverse*, ...) or non-specialised (*Instagram*, *TikTok*,...) sharing platforms.

### 3.4.3. Conclusion

In this section, we have discussed the different strategies employed by our selection of tools. These strategies are only from a selection of tools and are probably not exhaustive, but they have nevertheless allowed us to show some trends guiding the design of tools for knowledge resource creation.
We have seen that these strategies concern one of the four stages of the life of the resources: capture - transformation - representation - dissemination.

First, we have seen that the capture step is crucial, and that it is important to facilitate capturing knowledge as base material for the creation of knowledge resources to makers in a fabrication workshop. These tools must allow to capture good quality content, and allow the manipulation of objects with the hands. We explore the capture of this content in more detail in the rest of this thesis, Chapter 4 and Chapter 5.

Secondly, we found that some of the tools explore the automation of part of the resource transformation, this strategy deserves to be further explored. We explore some aspects of automating content capture in Chapter 4 and Chapter 5, and we discuss other aspects of automating knowledge resource creation in Chapter 6.

Finally, we found a need for the tools to be interoperable in order to allow the generation of different types of representations, and to allow the dissemination of resources outside the tool itself.

## 3.5. Conclusion

In this chapter, we conducted a literature review from which we identified the objectives and challenges for knowledge resource creation, which led us to guidelines regarding the design of tools to support makers facing these challenges.

This work is important because it can allow to emphasise different things. First of all, we have noted in the Chapter 2, the growing variety of users of fabrication workshops, as well as the different contexts in which makers are brought to produce knowledge. We also noted in Chapter 2 this porosity between the terminologies used to describe knowledge resources: tutorials, portfolios, project documentation. Thus, this chapter has taken into account these different terminologies gathered under the term "knowledge resources". The work presented
allows us to clarify the different objectives that these know-
ledge resources can pursue: Represent a fabrication project -
Reuse one's work - Support reflection - Communicate.

Second, we have identified more precisely the challenges
faced by makers pursuing a given objective in the creation
of their resources. Identifying these challenges by objective
allowed us to see that many of the proposed tools focus on
one part of the makers' challenges. That while many of the
proposed tools are complete solutions including capturing
and editing, they tend to focus on only one or two objectives
and specific challenges. On the other hand, a tool that ad-
dresses all objectives and challenges risks being feature-bloat
making it adapted to no one in particular and difficult to use
for most. However, one could imagine that a tool made avail-
able to the community of makers of a workshop could allow
these makers to pursue a variety of objectives, and thus be
helped in any challenges they face.

In addition, we have highlighted the strategies used by a se-
lection of tools to guide the design of future tools, thinking in
terms of the objectives and challenges of the makers. Theses
strategies are focusing on one moment of the life of the know-
ledge resources: capture - transformation - representation -
dissemination.

In particular, this work highlights an important need to sup-
port the makers in their content capture step. It also appears
that some of these tools offer to automate some of the cum-
bersome steps of resource creation, such as the transfer of
content, image processing or resources representation. Fi-
nally, we found that tools found in the literature are lacking
interoperability, and should provide opportunities for dif-
ferent kinds of representations of the resources and enable
makers to appropriate their resources for any use.

From this chapter, we derive several research directions that
are explored in the rest of this thesis, focusing on content
capture which is central to every type of resources.

The aim of Chapter 4 will be to better understand the aspects
of content capture in fabrication workshops, identifying the
different dimensions. These dimensions are used to go further
with the analysis of tools to support knowledge resource
creation, focusing on capture aspects.
Chapter 5 goes deeper into the important aspects of capturing, in particular on the practices of makers according to their objectives and their practice, and will explore some aspects of automation during content capture.

Finally, Chapter 6 discusses how the automation of certain aspects of knowledge resource creation can be considered and desired in the context of fabrication workshops.
# Content Capturing for Knowledge Resources in Fabrication Workshops

## 4.

The previous chapter focused on the objectives of knowledge resources where my co-authors and I identified many challenges for which the content capture step is central. While we have briefly described the reasons why capture is so challenging, we have only scratched the surface of the topic of content capture by identifying its difficulties in broad terms. This chapter now considers capturing as an activity taking place in and constraint by a given space. Content capture is considered as recording any aspect related to a fabrication project, such as pictures, videos, audio, a 3D object definition, or fabrication machine parameters that aims for the creation of knowledge. First, I will identify the different dimensions of content capture in fabrication workshops. For that, I present a framework that my co-authors and I published in [108]: Rigaud et al. (2022), ‘Exploring Capturing Approaches in Shared Fabrication Workshops’. This framework is structured around a set of questions known as the 5W1H (why, what, when, where, who, and how). For each of these questions, we analyse past work to identify a set of properties with which we describe content capture in fabrication workshops. Then, I reuse the selection of tools presented in Chapter 3, to show how this framework allows to describe and compare capturing capabilities of both existing and new research.

4.1 Framework: Content Capturing for Knowledge Resources in Fabrication Workshops 66

4.2 How to Use This Framework . . . . 77

4.3 Discussion . . . . . 83

4.4 Conclusion . . . . 86
## 4.1. Framework: Content Capturing for Knowledge Resources in Fabrication Workshops

Content capture can be deconstructed along several dimensions. First of all, Chapter 3 (section 3.2) established that capturing content from fabrication activities serves several objectives (*Why*) linked to the creation of knowledge resources, and makes it possible to include different modalities of knowledge (*What*) (picture, sound, video, ...). subsection 3.3.2 highlighted that different strategies exist to support the capture of this content (How). Moreover, Chapter 2, subsection 2.2.1 presented the way in which the fabrication activities are distributed in several places of the workshops (Where), and take place at different times (When). Finally, Chapter 3 suggested how the automation of some steps of the resource creation could be a way to facilitate the work of makers, and that some aspects of the resource creation could thus be managed either by the maker or by the system (Who). Using these 5W1H

<figure><img src="image_35.png" /><figcaption>**Figure 4.1.:** This figure shows how this chapter and the resulting framework integrate with the previous one, focused on knowledge resource creation</figcaption></figure>

questions, we now focus on content capture in the fabrication workshop as shown Figure 4.1 and provide a framework dedicated to capture. This framework complements the analysis of the previous chapter as it emphasises the capture stage on the one hand, and on the other hand it integrates capture objectives going beyond the creation of knowledge resources.

In the following sections, underlined words are used to refer to the sub-dimensions of our framework.
<table><thead><tr><th colspan="2">CONTENT CAPTURE</th><th colspan="2">KNOWLEDGE RESOURCE</th></tr><tr><th>Objectives</th><th>Examples</th><th colspan="2">Objectives</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Community</td><td>Machine presets</td><td colspan="2">Reuse one's work</td></tr><tr><td rowspan="2">Individual</td><td>Picture or video as a story on social networks</td><td colspan="2">Communicate</td></tr><tr><td>Reflection-In-Action Feedback on task</td><td colspan="2">Support reflection</td></tr><tr><td>Organisational</td><td>Meta-information</td><td colspan="2">Represent a fabrication project</td></tr></tbody></table>

**Figure 4.2.:** This figure shows how objectives for knowledge resources articulate between the moment of the capture and the moment of the represented resources.

### 4.1.1. Why to capture?

The why dimension of this framework describes the objectives of capture related to fabrication projects. Content capture is the starting point for the creation of knowledge resources. Thus, content capture allows the pursuit of the objectives identified in the previous chapter, once transformed and represented. However, the previous chapter looked at higher level objectives and challenges, whereas in this chapter these objectives are considered at a closer level for more immediate goals.

At the stage of content capture, these objectives can be classified differently and refined. We describe these objectives in terms of three levels: **community level**, **individual level** and **organisational level**. Figure 4.2 shows how these objectives are articulated according to the state of knowledge resource creation: capture vs transformed knowledge resources as described in Chapter 3. This figure shows, for each line: on the left the objectives and corresponding examples for the content capture, on the right the corresponding objectives of the knowledge resources as presented in the previous chapter.

At the **community** level, a common objective is to allow the creation of resources that can be *reused by others* (subsection 3.2.2). As explained in section 3.2, the resources can enable to teach by sharing both explicit and tacit knowledge, so that others can learn by replicating, remixing, or extending previous projects [94, 112]. At the stage of the capture, this objective can be pursued by providing simpler content to

Stages of resource creation
(Chapter 3)

We identified 3 stages of knowledge resource creation: capture, transformation, dissemination

<figure><img src="image_36.png" /></figure>

**Figure 4.3.:** We identified 1+3 objectives for knowledge resource creation in Chapter 3. **Represent** a fabrication project, transversal to all resources, **Represent** one's work, **Support reflection** and **Communicate**.
others. As an example, makers can save machine presets after performing successful tests on a given material so others can reuse it. Figure 4.4 shows how one can save power, speed and frequency parameters inside the software controlling a laser cutting machine for cutting or engraving.

<figure><img src="image_37.png" /><figcaption>**Figure 4.4.:** Some applications to control CNC machines allow users to save presets - this figures shows the interface of a library of presets for a laser cutting machine</figcaption></figure>

At the individual level, the previous chapter reported that content capture can be used to generate resources for the maker to communicate (subsection 3.2.4) and support their reflection (subsection 3.2.3). First, the objective Communicate (subsection 3.2.4) described how knowledge resource creation allows to build an identity through demonstrating skills, inspiring others and communicating ideas [77, 91, 101, 110]. At the stage of the capture, communicating can be done also with simple content such as pictures of work in progress published on social networks. At the age of platforms such as Instagram, TikTok, Twitter etc., popular mobile applications allow the content just captured to be shared with a community in real time, as illustrated with Figure 4.5.

Second, the objective "Support reflection" (subsection 3.2.3) described how knowledge resources can be a tool to track the progress of the makers. Supporting reflection can take another form at the fabrication activity and capture stage. Indeed, Schon [113] propose to nuance two types of reflections: Reflection—ON—action and Reflection—IN—action. As seen before, the resources can enable makers to reflect on their process [103], (ON—action [54, 113]) as they depict a broad view on the trajectories taken throughout the project. At the scale of an activity, capturing content for the creation
<figure><img src="image_38.png" /><figcaption>**Figure 4.5.:** Instagram stories showing real time work in progress published by @lookmumnocomputer</figcaption></figure>

of resources enables Reflection—*IN*—action: Capturing is a way to engage with the design process [13] as making intentional traces during an activity gives the opportunity to step back and to engage with the materials and tools, to have a different point of view of the activity while doing it and thus Reflecting—*IN*—action [54, 113]. In addition, a special case and motivation for capturing activities is to provide feedback during a fabrication activity, generally to guide makers in achieving their goals, for example, to dynamically communicate process information such as task progress and safety warnings [74], the maker's level of mastery of a tool [53], or to suggest an improved technique for the current task [22].

Finally, capturing content is also useful at the organisational level to extract *meta* knowledge resources and support the management of fabrication workshops [87, 92]. For example, systems can collect information about ongoing projects or provide overviews of the fabrication workshop activities and machine usage for decision support and space planning [53, 92].

While capturing content is beneficial at different levels (*why*), it is exposed to different barriers (*why not*). Chapter 3 identified the different challenges that makers face when creating knowledge resources, and we saw that many of the challenges occur at the content capture stage, during the fabrication activity. When makers work in the workshop, they generally devote most of their attention to the task at hand. The cap-
ture requires them to shift their attention from fabrication to capture, a costly process that often leads to forgetting to document. Both the fabrication and capture tasks also require physical manipulation on the part of the makers, especially with the hands. Capturing content and performing the fabrication activity are two conflicting tasks, both cognitively and physically. These barriers lead to not only fewer resources, but also resources which are incomplete or less rich than what makers wish for and thus are often not Reused [138, 144] and do not enable to Support Reflection—IN—Action.

### 4.1.2. What to capture?

Fabrication workshops host a wide range of activities from 3D printing over textile knitting, wood working to micro-controller programming (Chapter 2). This variety of activities may require makers to capture different types of content when working in the fabrication workshop. This dimension of the framework therefore describes the *modality* of knowledge that can be captured.

Visual content, *pictures* and *videos* are popular content types and, when enriched with text, build the basis of many knowledge resources [77, 132]. Indeed, pictures and videos can often efficiently communicate an idea, illustrate the steps required to create an artefact or demonstrate how an artefact can be used. However, pictures and videos are used differently. Videos are often considered more suited to capture processes [25], for instance, when communicating the gradual progression of a movement, which is complex to accurately recompose from static pictures. They are also more engaging [77] when the objective is to *communicate*. While this may reflect habits and opinions in the context of fabrication workshops, past work has shown that for some learning tasks, static pictures combined with text are more appropriate than videos [62], and that static diagrams can effectively communicate assembly instructions [2].

In addition to visual content, other formats may be relevant as well, such as *audio* [91], annotations [24, 26] or design files [132]. Indeed, as described in subsection 3.2.2, to *reuse one's work*, annotations explaining the *procedure* or information

#### Fabrication knowledge (subsection 2.3.1)

According to the grid of Jong and Ferguson-Hessler [69], *modality of knowledge is described as the form in which this knowledge is represented, which can be a text, a picture, a video, a diagram, etc.*
specifying *contextual knowledge* are crucial for a better understanding, and design files are a key to enable someone else to reproduce a project [144].

Going beyond these universal *modalities* of knowledge, other types of contents can be captured from fabrication activities, in particular *contextual information* on the activity. These information can be the identification of the user [75], the name of a project, the processes and methods involved, the used machines (e. g., 3D printer), tools (e. g., screw driver), components, materials and the type of source files. Captured content can also be more abstract such as location or timestamp [104], identifiers from RFID cards [20], or tags located on physical objects [41, 123], information about the environment such as the current state and location of a tool [64, 74, 114], or even serial outputs from a micro-controller [75].

<figure><img src="image_39.png" /><figcaption>**Figure 4.6.:** Gong et al. propose to equip makers and the workshop with various sensors aimed to gather different kind of data to compute contextual knowledge about the fabrication activity.</figcaption></figure>

Combined together, these information can better represent the context of the activity going on. As an example, Gong et al. [53] (Figure 4.6) proposes to collect different types of data: visual flow, audio, motion, temperature, humidity, luminosity and biometric sensors. They study the contribution of each of these data from different machine learning models, to allow the identification of the user, the recognition of the activity in progress as well as the level of expertise of the user. As a way to structure these contextual information, Troxler and Zijp [134] introduced the concept of FabML, a specification format based on XML to capture and exchange fabrication activities. FabML aims to provide a structured language to capture an activity together with relevant *contextual information*.

**Situated knowledge**
(subsection 2.3.1)

Contextual information can convey "Situated knowledge", which allows information to be interpreted in one way or another. In the case of fabrication, context is particularly important because the stages of a project usually consist of a variety of activities.
4.1.3. How to capture?

The *How* dimension describes the technologies and proper-
ties that can be used to capture content. Different types of
devices can be used such as physiological sensors, Inertial
Measurement Units which are also commonly used in aug-
mented reality to capture the manipulations of a user [29].
The sensors can also allow the scanning of RFID chips [20]
or tags [41]. For the creation of knowledge resources how-

<figure><img src="image_40.png" /><figcaption>**Figure 4.7.:** Workshops can be equipped with community hardware devices to support makers during the capture of their activities</figcaption></figure>

ever, the most prolific technologies are vision-based sensors.
Visual content is an integral part of knowledge resources and
visual sensors are present in most of the tools used by makers
for resource creation. Some workshops provide makers with
devices to support knowledge resource creation. Neverthe-
less, most of the makers are equipped and use their personal
devices to capture visual content. Thus, we distinguish here
between personal devices and community devices.

Capturing visual activity traces is often done using personal
devices like smartphones and tablets. They provide a quick and effective way to produce high quality pictures, and makers already bring them along into the workshop [25, 72]. Youths are especially comfortable using them to capture and share on platforms such as *YouTube* or *Instagram* [83, 101]. Because these devices have several sensors readily available, they can also be used to capture additional content, such as audio for orally annotating a video simply by speaking when the camera is recording [91]. However, makers’ personal devices also have important limitations. First, used on their own, they generally constrain hands-free manipulation [26] and thus limit a maker’s ability to work and record at the same time. Thus, as detailed by Keune et al. [72], most smartphones require mounting devices which can be costly to set up and suffer from inconveniences such as the screen going to sleep or conversely the device running out of battery. More importantly though, due to the fact that they are ubiquitous multi purpose devices, their sheer presence is unlikely to serve as an effective reminder, makers are likely to forget about their presence, and consequently forget to capture their work [72].

Chapter 3 section 3.3 reported that some fabrication workshops provide makers with *community devices* to capture content, often in the form of dedicated stations specifically for capturing picture and video. They typically include one or multiple cameras pointing towards an area reserved for capturing artefacts during a project, some form of lighting system to ensure good visibility, and in some cases additional mechanisms to facilitate the annotation of a project.

Different types of these stations were introduced in subsection 3.3.1 such as Dodoc [55], which features different modules including a lamp and a fixed camera pointing down at a documentation area to record video, still pictures, or build animations; Protobooth [11, 40] which captures different point of views of a prototype with several fixed webcam pointsing toward a platform; Fabnavi [140], a camera/projector assembly mounted on top of a table; and Spin, a camera combined with a turntable to generate animated GIFs of a 360° overview of a fabricated object [136]. These stations can also be made of DIY mounted toolkits to hold a smartphone or tablet and enhance the salience of the capture device [72]. While such stations are promising in many aspects, they do

### Categories of tools (section 3.3)

> We introduced 3 categories of tools to support makers in the creation of knowledge resources: software tools, fixed hardware tools and mobile hardware tools.
not provide *mobility* and thus constrain to work where the
station is installed or to interrupt one’s work and transport
artefacts over to the station.

Lastly, special devices can capture and transform other kinds
of data into video streams such as depth information (e.g.,
from a Microsoft Kinect) as done in Duplotrack [60] for re-
cognising assembly tasks, optical tracking streams such as in
AuthAR [146], or temperature fields through infrared cameras
in the case of blacksmith crafts [7].

4.1.4. When to capture?

Capturing content can happen at different moments in a
fabrication workshop. When the objective is on showcasing
a final product to *communicate*, capturing happens *after* an
activity [136, 138], to show the final outcome of a project.
Capturing the content at the end of the activity is the least
likely time for difficulties, since the makers are not busy with
other things, and the feeling of satisfaction with the finished
work may encourage documenting.

Capturing content *during* an activity has several advantages: it allows makers to keep track of *reflections* and decisions they made at the time of the activity [32, 135]. This is also the time when Reflection—*IN*—Action [54] can take place. Capturing during the activity is also important not to forget important information that others could *reuse*. Yet as described in subsection 3.2.1, capturing while focusing on a primary task is a main challenge. It imposes a break of flow as it requires to switch from a primary to a secondary task, which adds time and, most importantly, needs to be remembered. It is common to postpone or simply forget to capture the process and only capture the result [138, 151]. As a consequence, important (mis)steps [138] go missing and only the successful ones are captured [67, 84, 91, 135]. The result is that many knowledge resources are not adapted or reused [138, 144].

Finally, some types of content, such as sketches, drawings and
CAD files, are created *before* they can be fabricated and can
be captured for their later use in a tutorial or documentation
[41, 70, 144].
4.1.5. Where to capture?

<figure><img src="image_41.png" /><figcaption>**Figure 4.8.:** Whitlock et al. [146] introduced AuthAR, a tool based on multiple sensors located in different places of the environment, on the user and on tools.</figcaption></figure>

Subsection 2.2.1 explained that fabrication workshops are often laid out so that different types of activities happen in different areas [8]. Thus, makers need to move between areas, such as from a workbench where they are sketching and performing 3D modelling to a machine area where the 3D printer is located. Inspired by Gong et al. [53], we identified three types of placements for capture tools.

First, cameras or sensors can be attached in the environment, in a fixed fashion, e.g., mounted to a wall, or in a mobile fashion, e.g., on a tripod [26, 140]. Fixed cameras, such as downward-oriented cameras attached to the ceiling or on an auto-pole can provide an especially appropriate view for areas dedicated to specific activities [72] or in the case of documentation stations such as DoDoc [55]. Although fixed cameras provide a stable video result [140], they may not be appropriate for all activities, for instance, makers might want to capture a video of their artefacts at different locations (e.g., in front of a green screen or in a quiet place), where no cameras are installed. Relying only on fixed cameras would require a very high number of installed cameras, especially for large spaces. Mobile cameras offer more flexibility as they can be moved around in the space. Nonetheless, they also have drawbacks as their use increases the risk of occlusion by a person or an object, especially when using a tripod [26]. Additionally, tripods require extra manipulations, are obtrusive, and can hinder the mobility of people in a workshop.

Layouts of the workshops
(subsection 2.2.1)

Using a case study of several workshops, Annett et al. [8] showed that most of these places are open spaces with a series of areas dedicated to certain activities, including a computer design area, a woodworking area, an electronics area and so on.
Second, cameras or sensors can move with a *person*, for instance, by holding a smartphone, recording sensor data from a smartwatch [3, 53], or wearing a GoPro¹ on one's head. Head-mounted cameras enable hands-free interaction and provide a first-person perspective as illustrated with ShowHow [25] in Chapter 3, which can improve performance on assembly [76] and learning [83]. However, footage from first-person cameras often lacks stability in comparison with cameras in the environment [26], which tend to provide higher quality videos.

Finally, sensors and cameras can be attached to a *machine* such as a 3D printer, a laser cutter or a drill bench, capturing when and how specific machines are used [53]. Such fixed installation can have the advantage of optimising the viewpoint for good visibility.

1: https://gopro.com/

### 4.1.6. Who captures?

In the context of this framework, *who* refers to who initiates and controls content capture and related properties. In most cases, makers *manually* capture content by positioning and orienting a camera, adjusting its focus (even if this one is often automatic) and triggering (start/stop) the recording. They also often *manually* manage content, for example, by uploading it to a shared repository [121]. *Manual* control requires immediate *feedback* of what is being captured to check whether the objects of interest are in the field of view of the camera and whether the camera focus is correct [26]. Makers receive this feedback by annexing screens such as smartphones [91], by using dedicated screens [55] or by using augmented reality through video-projection [140] or wearable devices like Google Glass [26]. However, *manually* setting these parameters can be difficult when working, especially when the cameras are not directly accessible [26].

*Automated* capture has the potential to reduce cognitive and physical demands on makers, to let them focus on fabrication (their primary task) [26] and to free their hands to manipulate objects [72]. However, only few prototypes rely on this approach. For instance, Spin [136] automatises the orientation of a camera by the means of a turntable to create animations
of a 360° view of an object. Protobooth [75] creates 3D representations of an object via photogrammetry. However, we are not aware of approaches that, in the context of fabrication activities, automatically orient a camera to keep a moving tool or person in focus as was done, for example, in the context of recording moving presenters [148]. Some systems store automatically the content in a centralised place, following a specific organisation to make the retrieval easier. Centralised repositories can then automatically create links between records (e.g., tool usage or interactions), data-entries or projects [118]. For instance, Erichsen et al. [40] proposed a system that automatically captures timestamp meta-data associated with a project, enabling the visualisation of the different prototypes' iterations. Some argue that automated capture needs to be approached carefully though. For example, Keune et al. [72] raise two concerns: First, the process of taking a picture or recording some part of a process is the fruit of a reflection that is important, especially in a learning context, and should be made consciously; secondly, automated capture is likely to lead to a longer curation process due to a larger amount of captured content to review. Chapter 3 highlighted that automated techniques to create knowledge resources have also been explored to facilitate the work of the maker during the steps after the capture of content. Such explorations include automated image processing and documentation authoring [91] or automated video-tutorials based on the activity or movements recognition [3, 22].

## 4.2. How to Use This Framework

Table 4.1 provides an overview of the 5W1H dimensions (column 1), properties within (column 2), and how different systems compare to each other (remaining columns). System designers can consider *systematically* each dimension and the associated properties, to **describe** and analyse a capturing system they implement, **compare** it to existing systems, and, most interestingly, to identify gaps and **generate** systems with novel capabilities.

To illustrate how to use this framework, we propose to proceed with an exercise similar to the previous chapter but this
<table><caption>**Table 4.1.:** Comparison of different vision-based capture tools using the framework from section 4.1. For comparison we also include how the use of a generic smartphone compares with more specialised systems. Brackets indicate that a property depends on the concrete device choice or implementation (only applies to generic smartphones).</caption><thead><tr><th></th><th></th><th>Generic smartphone</th><th>Dodoc</th><th>Fabnavi</th><th>Spin</th><th>ShowHow</th><th>Document</th><th>While Doing</th><th>Protobooth</th></tr><tr><th></th><th></th><th colspan="8" style="text-align: center;">[55][140][136][26][91][11, 40, 75]</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td rowspan="2">Community benefits</td><td>■</td><td>■</td><td>■</td><td>■</td><td>■</td><td>■</td><td>■</td><td>■</td></tr><tr><td>■</td><td>■</td><td>■</td><td>■</td><td>■</td><td>■</td><td>■</td><td>■</td></tr><tr><td rowspan="2">Individual benefits</td><td>■</td><td>■</td><td>■</td><td>■</td><td>■</td><td>■</td><td>■</td><td>■</td></tr><tr><td>■</td><td>■</td><td>■</td><td>■</td><td>■</td><td>■</td><td>■</td><td>■</td></tr><tr><td>Organisational benefits</td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td>■</td></tr><tr><td>Pictures</td><td>■</td><td>■</td><td>■</td><td></td><td>■</td><td>■</td><td></td><td>■</td></tr><tr><td>Timelapses</td><td>(■)</td><td>■</td><td>■</td><td>■</td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td>Videos</td><td>■</td><td>■</td><td></td><td></td><td>■</td><td></td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td>Sound annotations</td><td>(■)</td><td>■</td><td></td><td></td><td>■</td><td>■</td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td rowspan="4">Text annotations</td><td>■</td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td>■</td><td>■</td><td>■</td><td></td></tr><tr><td>■</td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td>■</td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td>■</td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td>Contextual meta-data:</td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td>Project ID</td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td>■</td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td>■</td></tr><tr><td>Tools/machine</td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td>Location</td><td>(■)</td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td>Kinds of systems:</td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td>Community device</td><td></td><td>■</td><td>■</td><td>■</td><td>■</td><td>■</td><td></td><td>■</td></tr><tr><td>Personal device</td><td>■</td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td>■</td><td>■</td><td></td></tr><tr><td rowspan="4">Properties:</td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td>Mobile</td><td>■</td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td>■</td><td>■</td><td></td></tr><tr><td>Multiple</td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td>Hand free</td><td></td><td>■</td><td>■</td><td>■</td><td>■</td><td></td><td>■</td></tr><tr><td>Before</td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td rowspan="2">During</td><td>■</td><td>■</td><td>■</td><td></td><td>■</td><td>■</td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td>■</td><td>■</td><td></td><td></td><td>■</td><td>■</td><td></td><td>■</td></tr><tr><td>After</td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td>Environment</td><td></td><td>■</td><td>■</td><td>■</td><td>■</td><td>■</td><td></td><td>■</td></tr><tr><td rowspan="2">User</td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td>■</td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td>■</td><td>■</td><td></td></tr><tr><td rowspan="2">Machine/Tool</td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td rowspan="4">Automated properties:</td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td>orientation</td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td>■</td><td></td><td></td><td>■</td></tr><tr><td>position</td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td>contextual meta-data</td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td>■</td></tr><tr><td rowspan="2">Who</td><td>position</td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td>■</td></tr><tr><td>contextual meta-data</td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td>■</td></tr><tr><td>content management</td><td></td><td>■</td><td>■</td><td>■</td><td>■</td><td>■</td><td></td><td>■</td></tr></tbody></table>

time, focusing on capture aspects: In section 3.3, we had selected 8 tools to support makers in the creation of knowledge resources, 6 of them allowing to capture content. This selection of tools is revisited to demonstrate how our framework can be used to describe and compare different approaches to enable the capture of visual content. Figure 4.11 recalls the tools introduced in section 3.3 and illustrates some of their properties according to our framework.
### 4.2.1. Describing capture tools

First, the framework allows to describe the tools according to the 6 dimensions. We illustrate this using two examples: Dodoc [55] and Protobooth [11, 40, 75] (Figure 4.9).

<figure><img src="image_42.png" /><figcaption>**Figure 4.9.:** Dodoc and Protobooth are two documentation stations installed in fabrication workshops to gather visual content about fabrication activities.</figcaption></figure>

Chapter 3 presented DoDoc's main goal which is to support reflection (*Why*: individual benefits). It captures pictures, video, and sound annotations, and because of its fixed property (*How*: not mobile), can capture timelapses² (*What*: pictures, videos and sound) The station is shared among users and can be used hands-free (*How*: hands-free community device). It can be used both during and after fabrication activities (*When*: during and after), however, since it is located at a fixed place (*Where*: environment), makers may need to interrupt their activities to capture content *during* an activity. Finally, makers need to position and orient the camera manually, but Dodoc manages content automatically (*Who*: user - for manual orientation and position, but *Who*: system - for content management).

An other example to describe with the framework is Protobooth. As described in Chapter 3, Protobooth allows to create knowledge resources in the form of a web page allowing to reproduce the project (*Why*: community), to support the reflection of the makers and to interact with a community through comments (*why*: individual). However, in a version of the tool presented by Erichsen et al. [40], the authors also show how the captured metadata can be used to generate

²: Timelapses are animations of a sequence of pictures taken from the same view angle during a certain period of time and showing the accelerated evolution of a scene.
visualisations from the projects designed in the fabrication
workshop (*Why*: organisational). Figure 4.10 shows a visual-
isation of the different uploads of the projects in the workshop
divided according to the hours of the day and the days of the
week. This allows to have a view of the overall activity of
the workshop according to days and time slots, as well as to
follow the activity of a given project.

<figure><img src="image_43.png" /><figcaption>**Figure 4.10.** Protobooth uploads by time of day (horizontal axis), sorted by weekday (vertical axis), with colours indicating different projects.</figcaption></figure>

Protobooth captures pictures, RFID linked to projects and
timestamps (*What*: pictures, Contextual meta-data: project
ID, timestamp) It is designed as a fixed station placed in the
space (*Where*: environment), shared between users, and al-
lows to manipulate the objects during the capture (*How*: com-
munity device, hand free). However, it does not really allow
to capture during the fabrication activity but rather at the
end of a design stage (*When*: after). Finally, in a version of the
tool presented by Kohtala et al. [75], the station is equipped
with an automated turntable, allowing to capture 360-degrees
views. It thus has different properties managed by the system
(*Who*: system) orientation of the view, capture of contextual
meta-data, and management of the content, as the content is
automatically uploaded on the editing platform.
<figure><img src="image_44.png" /><figcaption>**Figure 4.11.** Figure illustrating 6 systems for capturing visual content. We distinguish systems according to some properties of the dimensions of the framework</figcaption></figure>

### 4.2.2. Comparing capture tools

Dodoc and Protobooth can also be compared to each other and other systems using this framework: Table 4.1 illustrates this for generic smartphones and a selection of five other systems which together provide an overview of the breadth of different capturing approaches. It is worthy of note that the comparative power of the framework lies in that it lets designers compare dimensions which were not necessarily
explicitly addressed in the articles describing each individual
system.

For example, concerning the *What* dimension, we gave the
example of Protobooth whose simple collection of data of
project identifiers and time of uploading allows benefits at the
organizational level (*Why*: organisational benefits). Fabnavi
[140] and Document-While-Doing [91], collect the project
IDs, and it seems likely that the other systems presented here
collect these two pieces of information: the time of upload
and the project or user ID. It should therefore be quite easy to
provide organisational benefits to these other tools as well.

Systems can also be compared along several dimensions: For
example, the dimension *What* to capture is strongly related
to the dimension *How* to capture: Timelapse capture (*What*:
timelapses) is made possible by tools based on the concept of
fixed stations (*How*: not mobile): Dodoc [55] Fabnavi [140],
and Spin [136], which make it possible to capture homogen-
eous views. Protobooth, which is also a fixed station, could
allow this. It is also interesting to compare the tools according
to the mobility they allow to the user: (*How*: mobile). Consider-
ing the mobility and the point of attachment of the capture
tool (*Where*), it stands out that the systems allowing mobility
(generic smartphone, Showhow [25], DwD [91]) are carried
by the user (*Where*: user), and that of these mobile systems,
only Showhow proposes to attach the capture tool on the
user's head, thus freeing his hands for the manipulations
during the activity (*How*: hand-free). Other tools that allow
hand-free manipulations are fixed stations, but compromise
mobility (*How*: mobile).

Finally, the tools can be compared along the *Who* captures
dimension, which shows that Spin and Protobooth stand out
from the others by offering to automate the orientation of the
capture point of view. As discussed before, Protobooth also
collects contextual meta-data automatically and uses it for
organisational benefits, which is not the case for the others.
Interestingly, all the systems allow for automated transfer
of content to a management system, unlike the case of the
generic smartphone, which involves the user transferring the
content on their own.
### 4.2.3. Conclusion

This section demonstrated how our framework can be used as an instrument to describe and compare different tools for capturing visual content in fabrication workshops (descriptive and comparative power). The next section is a discussion on how this framework can also shed light on some under-explored dimensions (generative power). This generative power lies in that the framework elicits which dimensions and properties are currently under-explored, which future work may find valuable to facilitate the communication of new contributions. Of course, the framework does not include all potential future properties and classes within each of the 5W1H dimensions, but it can easily be extended as needed to demonstrate the novelty of some future contribution.

## 4.3. Discussion

After demonstrating how this framework can be used as a instrument to describe and compare different visual capture tools, we discuss the generative power of our framework, then we highlight two key opportunities for design that show divergences and alignments between making practices and capture tools.

### 4.3.1. Generative power

First, the **Why** dimension shows that while *community* and *individual* benefits are commonly used to motivate the capture of content in fabrication workshops, *organisational* benefits such as providing an overview of the fabrication workshop activities [92] also serve organisational purposes but are less often considered. However, the example of Protobooth illustrated that the capture of rather basic *contextual information* such as Project ID and timestamp can already provide benefits for the workshops' organisation and similar tools could benefits from this advantage as well. This is related to the **What** dimension, in which we find that despite the wide range of devices, the capture of visual content such as *pictures* and *videos* is most prevalent, alongside *text* and *sound* annotations
even though capturing information about the context appears
to be relevant. Regarding the **How** dimension, many tools
from literature are *community devices*, which may be due to
the observation that makers tend to forget more easily to
capture when using their *personal devices* [72]. Many of these
*community devices* provide *hands-free* operations, which is
not surprising given that this is one of the essential barriers to
content capture (as discussed in Chapter 3 section 3.2). With
regard to **Where** capturing takes place, we observe that most
tools opt for a placement somewhere within the *environment*
as stations.

Worn capture devices have not been studied much and could
be explored further as they provide opportunity for *hands-free* operations as well as for *mobility*. A direct placement of
the capture tool on machines or tools remains to be explored
as well.

Concerning **When** capturing takes place, many systems aim
to increase support *during* the activity, since leaving it for
*after* the activity risks leaving out potential mistakes, which
could be valuable to include for future makers learning about
this activity [138]. It also makes it impossible to get internal
shots for things that are closed at the end, and generally puts
the emphasis on the final result and not the process.

Lastly, regarding **Who** controls capturing, we find that *com-munity devices* have the advantage of enabling an automated
transfer of the content captured with the tool, to a repository
or editing interface. Despite this important aspect, most ap-proaches are primarily manual, with previous work providing
little guidance on what degree of automation may be con-sidered desirable by makers and the level of agreement on
that question.

From these observations and the one made in the previous
chapters, we highlight two design opportunities which are
promising to explore: Supporting Diverse and Distributed
Activities, and Exploring Automated versus User Control
<figure><img src="image_45.png" /><figcaption>**Figure 4.12.:** Pictures taken from steps of tutorials found on Instructables. On the left, the picture shows a maker sanding a board (Source: Instructables "Drum Sanding Table for the Drill Press" www.instructables.com/Drum-Sanding-Table-for-the-Drill-Press/) On the right, the picture shows a maker soldering a component on a circuit board (Source: Instructables "Soldering" www.instructables.com/Soldering-3/)</figcaption></figure>

### 4.3.2. Opportunity for design: Supporting Diverse and Distributed Activities

There seems to be a paradox on the “How” dimension. On one side, we observe that a large number of systems are dedicated to very specific activities, often restricted to a limited area, such as a workbench, or to small objects and prototypes. They are generally composed of a single camera installed at a specific location, such as Dodoc [55] or Fabnavi [140] that are built as stations to capture the different steps of an assembly task by taking pictures from the top of a workbench. However, Chapter 2 subsection 2.2.1 reported that fabrication workshop involves *diverse activities* happening at different locations and machines *distributed* throughout a workshop [8]. For example, makers may need different point of views depending on the activities [26]: as shown Figure 4.12, a maker performing small electronics manipulations might not need the same point of view than a maker sewing or sanding a board. If the capture device is attached in a fixed fashion in the environment, as it is the case with documentation stations, all the activities may not benefit from the tool.

Some prior work proposed to make use of existing mobile devices [26, 91] which are more appropriate for distributed activities, but these still rely on a *single* camera. This implies that makers need to move their device between the differ-
ent areas in which they work and adjust its positioning and other parameters based on the specific needs of the different activities they carry out. As an example, a maker doing a woodworking project might want to film a step in which they are sanding an object, and then create a “before/after” timelapse of the sanding and painting steps. It would be cumbersome for them to use their smartphone to film the process of sanding and painting, and to keep a tripod in place to take homogeneous views for the timelapse.

#### 4.3.3. Opportunity for design: Exploring Automated versus User Control

On the “Who” dimension, we believe that there are missed opportunities. We observe that most approaches rely on *manual* controls (one exception is camera focus which is generally controlled automatically). Although manually controlling capture properties can help makers build expertise and reflect in and on action, the main activity of making is cognitively and physically demanding and requires, among other things, creative work, vigilance, and coordination with others. Therefore, *automating* at least some of the parameters listed under *Who* in Table 4.1 seems promising to let makers focus more on their main activity. This has not been studied much in the context of fabrication workshops, and it remains unclear which feature(s) should be automated and when. We argue that the *Who* dimension deserves more research to explore how makers could benefit from mixed-initiative approaches [6], i.e., combine the advantages of both manual and automatic control.

### 4.4. Conclusion

Chapter 3 identified several challenges to the creation of knowledge resources. Chapter 3 concluded that many challenges for knowledge resource creation already occur at the capturing stage. Therefore, this chapter explored content capture in fabrication workshops in more depth, in order to better understand its different dimensions. For this purpose, we carried out a literature review which resulted in a framework
based on the principle of the 5W1H questions. We decom-
pose content capture according to 6 dimensions, which can
allow a more analytical study of this task. This highlights that
content capture can go beyond visual content capture and
benefit makers and fabrication workshops for other purposes
than knowledge resource creation, for example by providing
opportunities for feedback on tasks in real time, or overviews
of the workshop activities. This also shows that the content
capture task, already identified as difficult in Chapter 3, is in
fact difficult for several reasons and levers can therefore be
activated in several of the dimensions. As such, the frame-
work can be used to describe and compare existing capture
tools, for example to observe which of these levers they ad-
opt, or not. To illustrate this, we reanalysed 6 systems from
Chapter 3, but this time focusing on their capture properties.
These systems were described and compared together and
with the use of a generic smartphone. After discussing the
generative power of the framework we highlighted two main
opportunity for the design of visual content capture tools:

► Supporting Diverse and Distributed Activities

► Exploring Automated versus User Control

I will explore these two design opportunities in the next
chapter.
# Exploring Visual
Capturing Approaches

5.

The previous chapter analysed aspects of content capture that need to be explored in more depth. In particular, we highlighted the need to explore how capture tools can support a diversity of spatially distributed activities, and to explore the automation of certain properties of these capture tools.

Thus, in this chapter, we break down these two research directions into three dimensions: multiplicity (number of capturing devices), variety (property homogeneity between capturing devices), and degrees of automation of the properties of these capture devices.

We first develop a design concept, termed Capush, composed of *multiple* camera-based units, *varying* according to their properties and the *degree of automation* of some of their properties. Our hypothesis is that a single type of capturing device with a set level of control is not sufficient to address the diverse needs when producing knowledge resources in fabrication workshops. Then, we run an online survey with 66 participants who report on their current capturing practices and, on how these unit types and their respective properties may suit their capturing needs. This chapter is based on an article published in CSCW'22 [108].

## 5.1. Design concept

The framework introduced in the Chapter 4 was about the analysis of existing systems. This chapter is about analysing potential *designs* of future systems. As the framework illustrates, the design space generated by the 5W+1H questions is enormous. We thus narrow our focus on visual capturing

5.1 Design concept . 88

5.2 Study design . . 95

5.3 Findings . . . . . 100

5.4 Discussion and Opportunities for Design . . . . . . . 111

5.5 Conclusion . . . 118
<figure><img src="image_46.png" /></figure>

**Figure 5.1.:** The design concept is exploring properties alongside two dimensions: multiplicity and variety of capture units.

(What), and particularly on three dimensions which emerged from the analysis of the framework: from the research direction “Supporting Diverse and Distributed Activities” we retain the (1) number of camera units and (2) the number of properties for each camera unit, and from the research direction “Exploring Automated versus User Control”, we retain (3) the degrees of automation of different properties.

### 5.1.1. Approach

The design space generated by the three dimensions: multiplicity, variety and degree of automation can be visualised following two axes: As shown Figure 5.1, the first axis is the multiplicity of capture units, the number of capture units, which goes from 1 (a single capture unit) to N capture units. The second axis is the variety of capture units, going from homogeneous capture units (all capture units have the same, determined configurations), to various capture units (captures units have different configurations). For each of the features of a given capture units (position, focus, zoom, meta-data collection, ...), a third axis describes their respective degree of automation.

In this design space, we imagine three extreme cases (A, B, C) as illustrated Figure 5.1.

First, we consider a system with *multiple* identical basic capture units (a simple camera) as shown in (A). Each capture unit is dedicated to a given location (station) and a given perspective. Given the distributed nature of the fabrication
activities and their diversity, this approach would require a large number of units and coordination between them (e.g., a maker would need to stop one and start another), or automation of properties.

The other extreme is to use a single, mobile camera that makers take with them (B), for example their smartphones. But as we have seen, this is cumbersome for the hands, or in the case of head-mounted glasses may not be suitable for all activities.

A third extreme case, (C), considers the *variety* of the configurations and their degrees of automation, where the system could be a single and re-configurable capture unit. However, the more properties to reconfigure, the more work and time the maker would spend on setting up the capture unit.

The third axis, describing the automation of properties, can be explored in the case of units featuring a big number of possible configurations that the maker must handle thyself. We could imagine an *intelligent capture unit* with *various and automated* properties offering the capacity to both determine and adopt the best configuration (e.g., location and orientation) depending on the activity, the maker, or the context. However, more intelligent systems require more powerful hardware, which risks being bulkier and which would likely only be available to more affluent workshops.

Between these 3 extreme cases, and their respective automated properties, is a rich space of possibilities which can be described by the mentioned three dimensions: *multiplicity* (number of camera units), *variety* (the different configurations for each unit type) and the respective *degree of automation* for each property. However, such a rich space is challenging to implement, and while evaluations with real physical prototypes are valuable when the concrete design choices for the implementation of these prototypes are clear, there is a risk of participants focusing on low-level implementation issues for cases where the possible design space is large. Greenberg and Buxton called this “local hill-climbing” [58] and emphasised, together with Tohidi et al. [127], the utility of “design sketches” which demonstrate some aspect but stay intentionally vague or non-committal on others.

Stability/Mobility
AIR (section 4.1)

The analysis of tools with our framework shows that there is a compromise between the stability offered by fixed captured tools and the mobility necessary for capturing diverse activities in the space.
Our approach is in line with their argument and similar to the one taken by Vitale, Odom and McGrenere [142], who upon describing their design space developed five design concepts and evaluated them with interviews only showing video sketches to participants. In our case, we use a design concept and a set of five conceptual units exemplifying areas within the design space. We also generated a video sketch to illustrate how these units could integrate in a fabrication workshop. We expect that the use of video sketches instead of actual prototypes reduces the risk of “local hill-climbing” as it has been used successfully in prior work [99, 142]. Similar to Vitale et al. [142] and Tohidi et al. [127], we include multiple unit sketches to give participants an idea of the breadth of the design space. While Vitale et al. base their findings on interviews, we use an online survey to reach a larger number of people.

### 5.1.2. Capush

We now describe our design concept called Capush to exemplify different areas of the design space: It considers a fleet of capture units (*multiplicity*) composed of different unit types with different properties (*variety*). Some of these properties can be automatised (*degree of automation*). We now detail the design concept.

**Capture unit** The focus is on visual capture, thus each capture unit needs to be equipped with a camera to capture images or videos (*what*) in high quality. A unit is meant to be affordable and easy to build, ideally using materials commonly available in fabrication workshops. It should also be light, small, and easily customisable and extendable. Because they are affordable, *multiple* capture units can be distributed in the fabrication workshops and make them accessible to all makers. Moreover, an incidental benefit is that distributed capture units throughout the space can attract the makers’ attention [72] and remind them to produce resources. Because they are light and small, makers can easily grab them and move them from one location to another one. Because they are customisable, it is possible to create different types of
unit with various properties to respond to the specificities of
different activities.

Each capture unit should be connected to a local network to
provide a centralised access to the control of the units and to
have them put captured content directly in a local repository.
All captured content should be automatically enriched with
contextual meta-data, such as which unit recorded the content
and where it was located (what). Such meta-data could then
serve to enrich later knowledge resources generated with the
captured material, for example, using (semi)automatic tools
to generate such resources [26, 91, 135]. It can also be used
for faceted search in captured material.

**Properties** Since we want units to be customisable, Capush is based on a set of properties with which a unit can be extended. In this chapter, we focus on four properties related to the dimensions of the framework. As illustrated in Table 5.1, all capture units capture the same content (what) but vary according to where they can be located (the environment, on a machine, or worn by someone), how they enable the capture and who controls each of the properties. In particular, who refers to the degree of automation: the position and/or orientation of a camera unit can either be controlled by the system (automatic) or a person (manual). Similarly, both the system and the user can initiate the capture of contextual meta-data. By combining the different properties, it is possible to derive a large variety of camera-based units.

5.1.3. Unit Types

We focus here on five unit types whose properties are summarised in Table 5.1. Figure 5.2 shows mockups of the different unit types and illustrates how they could be used. We also provide proof of concept and directions for implementing such system in Chapter A. These units aim to coexist in a fabrication workshop, each adapted to different activities. Below, we describe the functionalities of each of them.
<table><caption>**Table 5.1.:** Description of the five examples of camera units derived from Capush in terms of content captured (what), location (where): machine / environment / person, mobility and hand free properties (how) and levels of automation (who) (orientation, position, contextual content capture). For the who dimension, □ specifies whether the control is manual only and ■ whether the control can be manual and automated.</caption><thead><tr><th></th><th></th><th>Fixed</th><th>Pan-tilt</th><th>Clamp</th><th>Head-mounted</th><th>Table Bot</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><th>What</th><td></td><td colspan="5">Pictures / Videos / Project IDs / Tools / machines / Locations</td></tr><tr><th>Where</th><td>Environment<br>User<br>Machine</td><td>■</td><td>■</td><td>■</td><td></td><td>■</td></tr><tr><th>How</th><td>Mobile<br>Hands free</td><td>■</td><td>■</td><td>■</td><td>■</td><td>■</td></tr><tr><th>Who</th><td>Contextual meta-data<br>Orientation<br>Position</td><td>■</td><td>■</td><td>■</td><td>■</td><td>■</td></tr></tbody></table>

<figure><img src="image_47.png" /><figcaption>**Figure 5.2.:** Physical mockups of the five unit types: fixed, pan-tilt, clamp, head-mounted, and table bot.</figcaption></figure>

### Fixed camera

The fixed-camera unit is a camera attached (permanently) on a *machine* (such as a laser cutter) or a workstation (such as a soldering station) with a fixed, pre-determined viewpoint, focusing on the area of interest, such as a 3D printer bed, or a laser cutter work area.

<figure><img src="image_48.png" /></figure>
## Pan-tilt camera

The pan-tilt camera is an extension of the fixed camera. It is also installed permanently in the environment but its camera is mounted on a pan-tilt assembly enabling rotations around the pan and tilt axis for more control over the focus area. The control of the pan-tilt assembly can be *automatic* or *manual*. The latter lets makers control the *orientation* of the camera either through physical manipulations or through a (virtual) joystick interface displayed on a computer or smartphone's screen. Automatic control permits to track a specific tool or object while performing an activity, that is, objects of interest can remain in focus even if the makers move them. This approach is especially useful to capture a process including the displacement of pieces and tools on a workbench.

The three following units are mobile, enabling makers to freely transport and place them wherever they are working. While attached units can store their location as meta-data which only needs to be set once after installation, portable units need to be able to detect their location within a given space to provide this type of meta-data. We discuss how this could be achieved in Chapter A.

<figure><img src="image_49.png" /></figure>

## Clamp camera

A clamp camera is a mobile extension of the pan-tilt camera. It includes a battery pack and is mounted on a clamp, so that it can easily be moved and attached in the *environment* in different locations to get different points of view. This unit can thus be used to capture a scene from flexible points of view, providing makers with a quick and simple way to set up their scene.

<figure><img src="image_50.png" /></figure>

## Head-mounted camera

The head-mounted camera is an extension of the pan-tilt camera mounted on a headset, similar to the clamp but worn by a *person*, enabling a first person viewpoint capture. By attaching the unit once to the head, the maker can move around in the space wearing the head-mounted camera to go from an activity to another.

<figure><img src="image_51.png" /></figure>