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(De)composing Craft: An Elementary Grammar for Sharing Expertise in Craft Workflows

Ritik Batra, Lydia Kim, Ilan Mandel, Amritansh Kwatra, Jane L. E, Steven J. Jackson, Thijs Roumen

Abstract

Craft practices rely on evolving archives of skill and knowledge developed through generations of craftspeople experimenting with designs, materials, and techniques. Better documentation of these practices enables the sharing of knowledge and expertise between sites and generations. However, most documentation focuses on the linear steps leading to final artifacts, neglecting the distinct tacit knowledge, improvisational actions, and situated adaptations needed to meet the unique demands of each craft project. This omission limits knowledge sharing and reduces craft to a mechanical endeavor, rather than a sophisticated and contextual way of seeing, thinking, and doing. Drawing on expert interviews and literature from HCI, CSCW and the social sciences, we develop an elementary grammar to document improvisational actions of real-world craft practices. We demonstrate the utility of this grammar with a MLLM-powered interface called CraftLink that can be used to analyze expert videos and generate documentation to share material and contextual variations of practices with other knowledgeable but non-master craftspeople. Our user study with expert crocheters (N=7) evaluates our grammar's effectiveness in capturing and sharing expert knowledge with other craftspeople, offering new pathways for computational systems to support collaborative archives of knowledge and practice across time, space, and skill levels. We conclude by showing how our grammar address four key tensions of the craft learning environment: personal and shareable documentation, fragmented and discoverable expertise, linear and iterative practices, and data privacy and ownership.

(De)composing Craft: An Elementary Grammar for Sharing Expertise in Craft Workflows

Abstract

Craft practices rely on evolving archives of skill and knowledge developed through generations of craftspeople experimenting with designs, materials, and techniques. Better documentation of these practices enables the sharing of knowledge and expertise between sites and generations. However, most documentation focuses on the linear steps leading to final artifacts, neglecting the distinct tacit knowledge, improvisational actions, and situated adaptations needed to meet the unique demands of each craft project. This omission limits knowledge sharing and reduces craft to a mechanical endeavor, rather than a sophisticated and contextual way of seeing, thinking, and doing. Drawing on expert interviews and literature from HCI, CSCW and the social sciences, we develop an elementary grammar to document improvisational actions of real-world craft practices. We demonstrate the utility of this grammar with a MLLM-powered interface called CraftLink that can be used to analyze expert videos and generate documentation to share material and contextual variations of practices with other knowledgeable but non-master craftspeople. Our user study with expert crocheters (N=7) evaluates our grammar's effectiveness in capturing and sharing expert knowledge with other craftspeople, offering new pathways for computational systems to support collaborative archives of knowledge and practice across time, space, and skill levels. We conclude by showing how our grammar address four key tensions of the craft learning environment: personal and shareable documentation, fragmented and discoverable expertise, linear and iterative practices, and data privacy and ownership.

Paper Structure

This paper contains 48 sections, 7 figures, 4 tables.

Table of Contents

  1. Introduction
  2. Related Work
  3. Tacit Knowledge and Improvisation
  4. Craft Knowledge and Expertise Sharing
  5. Challenges in Creating Documentation
  6. Grammars to Map Expertise
  7. Expert Interviews
  8. Findings
  9. Improvisation and Adaptation
  10. Communicating Uncertainty.
  11. Adapting the Fundamentals.
  12. Tools for Documenting Practice.
  13. Limits of Documentation
  14. Level of Detail.
  15. Recording While Crafting.
  16. ...and 33 more sections

Figures (7)

  • Figure 1: (a) Improvisations in craft are documented as annotations, shown in this sourdough recipe. However, sharing tacit knowledge, improvisational actions, and situated adaptations is crucial to advance craft knowledge, shown here by different kneading techniques of stretch and fold compared to slap and fold. (b) We developed an elementary grammar composed of seven patterns occurring in craft workflows, to share expertisewithin craft communities. (c) We demonstrate the grammar in practice by designing an interface called CraftLink that enables craftspeople to translate unstructured craft videos to shareable documentation artifacts, based on our grammar.
  • Figure 2: During this machine knitting workflow, steps involving tacit knowledge are challenging to document. Our elementary grammar captures this with these patterns: (a) Granularity Shifts, (b) Reflective Loops, (c) Note-to-Self, (d) External Links, (e) Segments, (f) Branches, and (g) Revision Loops.
  • Figure 3: The pipeline of our demonstrative implementation of the grammar.
  • Figure 4: The foundational elements for our grammar represented in CraftLink.
  • Figure 5: CraftLink, as shown from the creator perspective, implements the patterns described within our elementary grammar: (a) Segments, (b) Granularity Shifts, (c) Note-to-Self, (d) External Links, (e) Reflective Loops, (f) Branches, and (g) Revision Loops.
  • ...and 2 more figures