Build in Progress: Building Process-Oriented Documentation

Making often involves an iterative cycle of testing and re-designing in response to setbacks as well as serendipitous discoveries. Anyone that has created a design project knows that projects rarely work on the first try; instead, they are constantly tweaked and refined to function as intended. Yet this iterative process is rarely spoken about or shared in traditional forms of product-oriented documentation that focus on final products or recipes for creating those products. What might documentation look like that captures the story of how a project was created, including the various experiments and attempts that led up to a final design? To support a storytelling and process-oriented approach to documentation, I developed a website called Build in Progress in which Makers can share their personal journey of developing a project as the project is being built (rather than after a project is complete). Build in Progress explores how Makers can be supported throughout their design process and how messy, iterative design processes can be visually represented. Creating a design is often not a straightforward process; to accommodate this, Build in Progress enables users to represent their design process in a non-linear format. In this chapter, I describe the design of Build in Progress and share four vignettes of Makers capturing, sharing, and reflecting on their design process using the site. These vignettes highlight how Build in Progress has helped Makers seek feedback on their projects, help others through their documentation, build reflective “living” documentation, and tell the story of their design process. I end with describing several open challenges and opportunities for supporting Makers sharing their design process online.