Analog journaling has grown in popularity, with journaling on paper encompassing a range of motivations, styles, and practices including planning, habit-tracking, and reflecting.Journalers develop strong personal preferences around the tools they use, the ideas they capture, and the layout in which they represent their ideas and memories.Understanding how analog journaling practices are individually shaped and crafted over time is critical to supporting the varied benefits associated with journaling, including improved mental health and positive support for identity development.To understand this development, we qualitatively analyzed publicly-shared journaling content from YouTube and Instagram and interviewed 11 journalers.We report on our identification of the journaling ecosystem in which journaling practices are shaped by materials, personal context, and communities, sharing how this ecosystem plays a role in the practices and identities of journalers as they customize their journaling routine to best suit their personal goals.Using these insights, we discuss design opportunities for how future tools can better align with and reflect the rich affordances and practices of journaling on paper.

Creating 2D animations is challenging because it requires iterative refinement of movement and transitions across multiple elements within a scene. We explored the potential of LLMs to support animation design by first identifying current challenges in formative interviews with animation creators, and then developing a design probe and LLM-based animation design tool called Keyframer. From user-provided graphics and natural language prompts, Keyframer generates animation code, enables users to preview rendered animations inline, and supports direct edits for iterative design refinement. We utilized this design probe to uncover user prompting styles for describing animation in natural language and observe user strategies for iterating on animations in an exploratory user study with 13 novices and experts in animation design and programming. Through this study, we contribute a categorization of prompting styles users employed for specifying animation goals, along with design insights on supporting iterative refinement of animations through the combination of direct editing and natural language interfaces.

Existing novice-friendly machine learning (ML) modeling tools center around a solo user experience, where a single user collects only their own data to build a model. However, solo modeling experiences limit valuable opportunities for encountering alternative ideas and approaches that can arise when learners work together; consequently, it often precludes encountering critical issues in ML around data representation and diversity that can surface when different perspectives are manifested in a group-constructed data set. To address this issue, we created Co-ML – a tablet-based app for learners to collaboratively build ML image classifiers through an end-to-end, iterative model-building process. In this paper, we illustrate the feasibility and potential richness of collaborative modeling by presenting an in-depth case study of a family (two children 11 and 14-years-old working with their parents) using Co-ML in a facilitated introductory ML activity at home. We share the Co-ML system design and contribute a discussion of how using Co-ML in a collaborative activity enabled beginners to collectively engage with dataset design considerations underrepresented in prior work such as data diversity, class imbalance, and data quality. We discuss how a distributed collaborative process, in which individuals can take on different model-building responsibilities, provides a rich context for children and adults to learn ML dataset design.

This pictorial presents Circuit Assemblies, a design system for beginners to create 3D-printed interactive objects with embedded electronics. Circuit Assemblies are modules used to create objects that light up, move, or spin using basic electronic components like LEDs, batteries, and motors. To support beginners incorporating Circuit Assemblies into 3D designs, a set of virtual components were added to Tinkercad, a popular browser-based 3D CAD application with over 10 million users. In this paper, we begin with a set of design considerations gathered from interviews with three K-12 educators that teach electronics. We then present four different Circuit Assembly modules designed with these considerations in mind, highlighting the unique challenges that arise from combining electronics and 3D design for beginners, both in CAD software and physical assembly. We then present four different Circuit Assembly modules designed with these considerations in mind, highlighting the unique challenges that arise from combining electronics and 3D design for beginners, both in CAD software and physical assembly.

This paper presents PlushPal, a web-based design tool for children to make plush toys interactive with machine learning (ML). With PlushPal, children attach micro:bit hardware to stuffed animals, design custom gestures for their toy, and build gesture-recognition ML models to trigger their own sounds. We describe how, in the context of storytelling, PlushPal introduces core concepts in ML including data sampling and model evaluation. We conducted online workshops and in-person play sessions with 11 children between 8-14 years old building interactive stuffed animals with PlushPal. In these play sessions, we observed how children imagined bringing their toys to life using ML, as well as how children’s data literacy changed as a result of experimenting with sensors, data sampling, and building their own ML models. Our work contributes a novel design space for children to express their ideas using gesture, as well as a description of observed debugging practices, building on efforts to support children using ML to enhance creative play.

While sharing design projects is often seen as an essential component of participating in the maker community, ways in which young people can meaningfully participate have only begun to be supported. In this paper, we contribute an evaluation of Spin, a system for youth to capture and share animations of physical design projects. We describe how educators and students used Spin in 16 different K-12 makerspaces over 6 months, ranging from 2-hour-long workshops to extended 8-week engagements. Through our analysis of over 450 animations created during this timeframe and interviews and surveys with users, we outline the role of engagement, integration, and modularity for making documentation practice relevant and meaningful. We distill these ideas into design principles for creating documentation tools to support young makers.

While project documentation can help young Makers showcase their learning, prototyping skills, and creativity, motivating documentation practices has remained a challenge. Current tools for photographing projects are often disruptive to the flow of creating a design project, and compiling documentation into a readable and sharable format can be time consuming. To address these issues, I introduce Spin, a photography turntable system for creating animated documentation. Spin consists of a motorized turntable that pairs with a mobile device to capture 360-degree views of a DIY project at a particular point in time. These photographs are compiled into an animation of the project called a spin. As a project is developed over time, spin animations are compiled into a set animation showcasing the evolution of the project. This paper describes the motivation for creating the Spin system, its current implementation, and a planned pilot study involving introducing the system to several Makerspaces across the United States for extended use.

This paper introduces the concept of Process Products, or digitally fabricated objects embedded with visual representations of design process. The goal of this work is to use automation to capture the iterative process of designing and manufacturing objects using digital fabrication and encapsulate this information directly on the produced objects themselves. Documenting iteration can help designers communicate the evolution of their design, reveal strategies that designers use to create products, and help manufacturers of digital fabrication technologies understand how their tools are used. We propose three potential forms of Process Products: Process Heatmaps, Process Stacks, and Process Textures, as a way to spark discussion on capturing and representing iteration in the design of physical objects.

Despite the growth of online communities for sharing DIY projects, little research has focused on the methods by which project documentation is created and utilized -- that is, what techniques do designers use to document their work, how do they describe their work to others, and how do readers utilize design documentation in the context of their own projects? Through interviews and surveys with authors and readers of Instructables, we describe differences found in the practices of these two types of users in creating and applying design documentation. Based on the results, we identify design opportunities for members of the HCI community developing tools to better support people sharing creative work online.

Replay is a self-documenting construction kit for children to both share their designs with others and reflect on their own design process. Replay consists of a set of angular pieces that can sense their connection and orientation. A virtual model is rendered in real time as a design is constructed, and an on-screen playback interface allows users to view models from multiple perspectives and watch how a design was assembled. This paper describes the early development of Replay and describes potential directions for the documentation of physical designs.

Children engage in both structured and unstructured design activities with construction kits; for example, a child can choose to build predefined models with accompanying instructions or build their own models from scratch. This study explores the differences in children's play experience in both activities and looks specifically at how children respond to different instructional media. An exploratory study with six children between the ages of six and nine is described in which children used a paper-based, virtual, or physical model as a basis for creating a LEGO model. Children then had the opportunity to create a model of their own design. Through the study, the authors provide suggestions for enhanced virtual instruction guides and recommendations for combining the benefits of structured and unstructured play to create new design experiences for children.

In this paper, we present and evaluate the design and learning affordances of Mechanix, an interactive display for children to create, record, view, and test systems of tangible simple machine components. By documenting children's interactions, Mechanix provides opportunities for children to learn from user-generated examples and to reflect on their own designs. Through a series of user studies with children, we examine the system's capabilities for documenting tangible design work, facilitating social learning and collaboration, and providing distinct entry points that appeal to a broad range of learners. Our results illustrate the potential of incorporating automated documentation with tangible toolkits to support learning about physics and engineering systems design.

Mechanix is a low-cost, interactive system for children to design and explore mechanical systems using computer-vision tracked, magnetic components. It employs a semi-transparent magnetic surface that supports the placement and tracking of magnetic simple machine pieces and acts as a projection screen. A back-mounted webcam captures the position of the pieces using visual tags, while a projector depicts virtual components in user-generated challenges and solutions. Designed as a museum exhibit and grounded in constructionist learning theory, Mechanix combines a virtual library of user-generated content with a tangible interface to enable asynchronous and synchronous interactions.