COMMUNITY : HELP : FEEDBACK

I have found that, in many new projects, there is a certain amount of planning and a whole lot more trial and error (as expected). As such, the second time I make a project may be drastically different based on the lessons learned from the first. When I think about how I want to present the Instructable, there is always a struggle to capture all the failed attempts without cluttering up the "go do this and it will most likely work" version. Perhaps it depends on the project. Sometimes, I want to just see the steps that work. Sometimes, it would be nice to hear every detail on what didn't work along the way and why the creator decided to do certain things and how their creative process flowed.

An idea would be to have some sort of collapsible section of each step that contains all the lessons learned. For example, if you're sewing button holes for the first time in your life, you will probably want to practice a few times. You could capture all the "unused" attempts in the "lessons learned" section of the "Sewing Button Holes" step without cluttering up the satisfactory attempt that you end up going with. This may not be such a useful feature for smaller, simpler Ibles, but could greatly enhance more complex Ibles that involve fairly experimental processes.

Maybe you've never used a miter saw before, so you research it a bunch and read all the Ibles on it and look through the forums. You could link all your research within the Lessons Learned and take everyone through your experiences and trials without bogging down your Ible step with too many photos and thoughts.

On a larger level than cleaning up Ibles, this could possible enhance the learning opportunity in every Ible, bringing emphasis to processes instead of end products. Maybe you could even tag the Lessons Learned sections and make them searchable as their own entities. Maybe you just want to create an entire Ible on each process you used and link it in the step. This could go in many directions...

Thoughts? Ideas? Post links to Ibles that might be able to benefit from something like this?