This work presents a large-scale study of Do-It-Yourself (DIY) communities, cultures and projects. We focus on the adoption and appropriation of human-computer interaction and collaboration technologies and their role in motivating and sustaining communities of builders, crafters and makers. Our survey of over 2000 individuals across a range of DIY communities including Instructables, Dorkbot, Craftster, Ravelry, Etsy, and Adafruit reveals a unique set of values, emphasizing participatory involvement, open sharing, learning, and creativity over profit and social capital. We provide insight into the practices and technologies that afford these values and argue for increased collaboration and engagement by CHI practitioners with these DIY expert amateurs.
Our research contribution provides a deep range of insights and analysis into the practices and technologies that are at the core of successful DIY communities. We argue for the adoption of such techniques within similar related CHI research. We also argue for the increased collaboration and engagement by CHI practitioners with these DIY expert amateurs and present this work as one such mechanism to import DIY culture into CHI and vise versa.
We analyze and discuss DIY as a vibrant culture with a long history of learning, creating and sharing. We have shown that above all, members of these communities aspire and value new ideas, creativity, and self-expression. Driven by this creativity, they seek to learn new concepts and skills, which in turn enable them to work on original and innovative projects. They then share these projects with their communities, inspiring and teaching others, thereby creating a feedback loop that sustains their culture.