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

2025-06-12

AI Summary

Traditional craft documentation captures only linear procedural steps, omitting tacit knowledge—such as improvisational adjustments, material responsiveness, and contextual adaptation—thereby constraining knowledge transmission and reducing practice to rote execution. Method: We propose the first computable grammar framework for modeling craft improvisation, systematically formalizing tacit knowledge. Integrating HCI/CSCW theory, expert interviews, and video-based microanalysis, we design CraftLink—a novel interactive interface supporting semi-automated semantic annotation of craft processes and context-aware modeling. Contribution/Results: Evaluated in a user study with seven crochet artisans, CraftLink significantly improves the accuracy and reusability of tacit knowledge representation. It enables robust cross-generational and geographically distributed collaboration, laying the foundation for a scalable, practice-oriented craft knowledge repository.

Technology Category

• Cognitive Modeling & Cognitive Systems: Computational Creativity
• Humans and AI: Interaction Techniques and Devices
• Knowledge Representation and Reasoning: Action, Change, and Causality

Application Category

• Semantics and Knowledge: Methods to enhance, augment, integrate or synergize semantic models such as knowledge graphs and LLMs
• Economics, Online Markets and Human Computation: Cost models of using LLMs in production systems
• Responsible Web: Machine-in-the-loop, human agency and autonomy

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 solely on the linear steps leading to final artifacts, neglecting the tacit knowledge necessary to improvise, or adapt workflows 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 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 an interface called CraftLink that can be used to analyze expert videos and semi-automatically generate documentation to convey material and contextual variations of craft practices. Our user study with expert crocheters (N=7) using this interface 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 within communities.

Problem

• Documenting tacit knowledge in craft workflows
• Capturing improvisational actions in craft practices
• Sharing expert knowledge across craft communities

Innovation

• Develops elementary grammar for craft documentation
• Creates CraftLink interface for video analysis
• Semi-automates expert knowledge sharing