Brighton Mini Maker Faire 2012
Rob Phillips (rdphillips.co.uk ) and I ran a stall at Brighton Mini Maker Faire 2012 asking visitors about their experiences with instructions, and how to make them better. Instructions are important to the Maker movement - following what others have done is often what helps people get into making, but the quality, style and assumed level of knowledge can vary significantly (there are parallels with documentation issues in open source software).
Our Maker Faire activity included asking visitors to create their own instructions for someone else - either how to make a cup of tea, or how to make fire. Thanks to Rob's expertise in the latter area, we had a bow drill and lots of different possible materials to experiment with, although of course we couldn't actually let people light any fires in the hall, so a hastily-conceived Arduino blinking a random pattern of red, yellow and orange LEDs had to suffice.
Once we've read through all the postcards people very kindly (and enthusiastically) filled in, we'll be able to extract some insights - from a preliminary look through, it's clear there's a mix of very visual and text-based preferences, with some interesting combinations, and some people basically not liking following instructions at all. And, very wonderfully, an instruction video filmed and uploaded to YouTube on the spot.
Keep an eye on rdphillips.co.uk and danlockton.co.uk for the results of the exercise - and thanks to everyone who took part, and helped, including the brilliant volunteers from the Maker Faire organisers.
Brighton Mini Maker Faire 2012
Rob Phillips (rdphillips.co.uk ) and I ran a stall at Brighton Mini Maker Faire 2012 asking visitors about their experiences with instructions, and how to make them better. Instructions are important to the Maker movement - following what others have done is often what helps people get into making, but the quality, style and assumed level of knowledge can vary significantly (there are parallels with documentation issues in open source software).
Our Maker Faire activity included asking visitors to create their own instructions for someone else - either how to make a cup of tea, or how to make fire. Thanks to Rob's expertise in the latter area, we had a bow drill and lots of different possible materials to experiment with, although of course we couldn't actually let people light any fires in the hall, so a hastily-conceived Arduino blinking a random pattern of red, yellow and orange LEDs had to suffice.
Once we've read through all the postcards people very kindly (and enthusiastically) filled in, we'll be able to extract some insights - from a preliminary look through, it's clear there's a mix of very visual and text-based preferences, with some interesting combinations, and some people basically not liking following instructions at all. And, very wonderfully, an instruction video filmed and uploaded to YouTube on the spot.
Keep an eye on rdphillips.co.uk and danlockton.co.uk for the results of the exercise - and thanks to everyone who took part, and helped, including the brilliant volunteers from the Maker Faire organisers.