DIY Projects, Communities and Cultures
Intro: DIY Projects, Communities and Cultures
A year or so ago, we invited DIY enthusiasts from Instructables, Ravelry, Adafruit, Craftster, Dorkbot, and Etsy to fill out our survey on DIY communities, projects, and cultures. We received 2600+ responses in just a few weeks. Many many thanks to everyone who contributed!!
In this 'Instructable', we share some of our findings. We explore DIY as a broad cultural movement, spanning many domains and materials. This is just one way- and one starting point- for understanding DIY communities, motivations and practices. We would love to hear your feedback!
Please check out our paper. All images are taken from my talk at NordiCHI. Freel free to download the full slide deck as a pdf or a set of images.
Stacey Kuznetsov and Eric Paulos
{ stace, paulos } @ cs.cmu.edu
Human Computer Interaction Institute
Carnegie Mellon University
In this 'Instructable', we share some of our findings. We explore DIY as a broad cultural movement, spanning many domains and materials. This is just one way- and one starting point- for understanding DIY communities, motivations and practices. We would love to hear your feedback!
Please check out our paper. All images are taken from my talk at NordiCHI. Freel free to download the full slide deck as a pdf or a set of images.
Stacey Kuznetsov and Eric Paulos
{ stace, paulos } @ cs.cmu.edu
Human Computer Interaction Institute
Carnegie Mellon University
STEP 1: Some Background
We adopt the Wikipedia definition of DIY (Do It Yourself) as any creation, modification or repair of objects without the aid of paid professionals.
DIY practices predate recorded history as human survival often relied on the ability to repair and repurpose tools and materials. Over the past few decades, new materials and sharing mechanisms have led to a wider adoption of DIY culture.
One of the earliest “modern era” DIY communities formed among amateur radio hobbyists in the 1920’s. Ham radio communication continued even during World War II, when a ban was placed on amateur radio communication.
Starting in the 1970's, enthusiasts created 'zines' to express the punk aesthetic. Other early examples include non-professionals experimenting with MIDI equipment in the 1980's and the subsequent rave culture; or numerous hacker communities of the 90's.
Thousands of DIY communities exist today, varying in size, organization and project structure. Some allow members to contribute asynchronously on a variety of topics, while others focus on specific projects such as knitting or hip craft. Some revolve around smaller in-person gatherings and some enable hobbyists to trade or sell their projects.
We focus on a subset of these as a sample of the diverse materials, practices and sharing mechanisms among DIY practitioners.
DIY practices predate recorded history as human survival often relied on the ability to repair and repurpose tools and materials. Over the past few decades, new materials and sharing mechanisms have led to a wider adoption of DIY culture.
One of the earliest “modern era” DIY communities formed among amateur radio hobbyists in the 1920’s. Ham radio communication continued even during World War II, when a ban was placed on amateur radio communication.
Starting in the 1970's, enthusiasts created 'zines' to express the punk aesthetic. Other early examples include non-professionals experimenting with MIDI equipment in the 1980's and the subsequent rave culture; or numerous hacker communities of the 90's.
Thousands of DIY communities exist today, varying in size, organization and project structure. Some allow members to contribute asynchronously on a variety of topics, while others focus on specific projects such as knitting or hip craft. Some revolve around smaller in-person gatherings and some enable hobbyists to trade or sell their projects.
We focus on a subset of these as a sample of the diverse materials, practices and sharing mechanisms among DIY practitioners.
STEP 2: Survey Respondents
We collected 2608 responses, with participants’ ages from 18 to 95. The response rate is overwhelmingly female (2287 female, 186 male, 11 transgender). A large number of our respondents are from knitting and crocheting communities. Perhaps our overwhelmingly female response rate is due to a female majority in Ravelry and Craftster (71% and 68% respectively).
Overlap across communities
Despite the large response pool, less than 20 participants belong exclusively to only one of Instructables, Adafruit, Dorkbot or Etsy. Participants from all six of the studied communities indicate involvement in other DIY groups, including Flickr, LiveJournal, Yahoo Groups, ThreadBanger, Make Magazine, Knitter’s Review, deviantART, Cut Out + Keep, and Crochetville.
Some of our respondents explained that they belong to more that one community to be able exchange ides with people of diverse backgrounds. Other responses highlight that different communities provide different ‘audiences’, and the importance of community size.
Overlap across communities
Despite the large response pool, less than 20 participants belong exclusively to only one of Instructables, Adafruit, Dorkbot or Etsy. Participants from all six of the studied communities indicate involvement in other DIY groups, including Flickr, LiveJournal, Yahoo Groups, ThreadBanger, Make Magazine, Knitter’s Review, deviantART, Cut Out + Keep, and Crochetville.
Some of our respondents explained that they belong to more that one community to be able exchange ides with people of diverse backgrounds. Other responses highlight that different communities provide different ‘audiences’, and the importance of community size.
STEP 3: Contributions to DIY Communities
Over 90% of our respondents contribute to DIY communities through questions, comments and answers.
While nearly 87% of participants also post images of their projects at least once a year, much fewer respondents showcase personal work through step-by-step instructions and videos. In particular, videos are the rarest contribution (more rare than in-person interactions) with less than 8% of participants ever sharing a video.
Surprisingly, despite the fact that only 5% of respondents are members of Dorkbot, the only community that officially revolves around in-person meetings, a third of respondents attend in-person meetings and over a quarter present their work in-person at least several times a year.
Qualitative responses suggest that in-person meetings range from “a group of friends” to informal “knit-along’s”, to larger “evening gathering[s] for the community”, often organized outside of the six communities from our study.
While nearly 87% of participants also post images of their projects at least once a year, much fewer respondents showcase personal work through step-by-step instructions and videos. In particular, videos are the rarest contribution (more rare than in-person interactions) with less than 8% of participants ever sharing a video.
Surprisingly, despite the fact that only 5% of respondents are members of Dorkbot, the only community that officially revolves around in-person meetings, a third of respondents attend in-person meetings and over a quarter present their work in-person at least several times a year.
Qualitative responses suggest that in-person meetings range from “a group of friends” to informal “knit-along’s”, to larger “evening gathering[s] for the community”, often organized outside of the six communities from our study.
STEP 4: Motivations for Contributing to DIY Projects
Above all else, our participants contribute to DIY communities to get “inspiration and new ideas for future projects” (81% strongly agree, 16% agree) and to “learn new concepts” (68% strongly agree, 29% agree).
A large portion of free responses emphasizes fun as a motivation: “have fun!” or “it’s fun!” Other comments revolve around learning, for instance: “to learn new techniques”, and community bonds: to “socialize” or “to feel connected to other like-minded people”.
The majority of participants are not driven by “finding employment” or “improving online reputation”, with 68% and 60% disagreeing with each motivation, respectively.
Question answering as an instrument of learning
How is responding to others’ questions (most frequent contribution) related to learning and inspiration (most supported motivations)? Following up with our respondents, we simply asked: why do you answer questions in DIY communities? Our respondents suggested that the act of answering questions helps them learn! For example, one person told us: "By responding, I have also gotten feedback on what I posted, and in at least 2 cases, was able to correct technique that (it turns out) I was doing wrong.”)
A large portion of free responses emphasizes fun as a motivation: “have fun!” or “it’s fun!” Other comments revolve around learning, for instance: “to learn new techniques”, and community bonds: to “socialize” or “to feel connected to other like-minded people”.
The majority of participants are not driven by “finding employment” or “improving online reputation”, with 68% and 60% disagreeing with each motivation, respectively.
Question answering as an instrument of learning
How is responding to others’ questions (most frequent contribution) related to learning and inspiration (most supported motivations)? Following up with our respondents, we simply asked: why do you answer questions in DIY communities? Our respondents suggested that the act of answering questions helps them learn! For example, one person told us: "By responding, I have also gotten feedback on what I posted, and in at least 2 cases, was able to correct technique that (it turns out) I was doing wrong.”)
STEP 5: DIY Projects
The majority of our respondents (90%, 2285 in total) contribute to DIY projects.
We asked our participants to select the categories that describe their projects. The majority (94%) of our survey participants who work on DIY projects contribute to craft projects such as knitting or sewing. Other popular categories include food/cooking (51%), art (44%), and home improvement (35%). Most respondents contribute to more than one category, and all categories significantly overlap with craft (by 70% or more) and cooking (58% or more). Electronics is an exception, overlapping with craft by only 43% and cooking by 40%. Free response project categories range from “gardening” to “photography” to “automotive” among others.
We asked our participants to select the categories that describe their projects. The majority (94%) of our survey participants who work on DIY projects contribute to craft projects such as knitting or sewing. Other popular categories include food/cooking (51%), art (44%), and home improvement (35%). Most respondents contribute to more than one category, and all categories significantly overlap with craft (by 70% or more) and cooking (58% or more). Electronics is an exception, overlapping with craft by only 43% and cooking by 40%. Free response project categories range from “gardening” to “photography” to “automotive” among others.
STEP 6: DIY, Time and Money
Nearly two thirds of respondents spend between $11 and $50 on a typical project, and the vast majority (84%) does not get paid for their projects.
Project cost correlates with project completion time (more than 87% of participants who spend under $25 on a project finish it in under 30 hours, while more than half of projects that cost above $500 require over 100 hours to finish).
For 66% of respondents, a typical project takes less than 30 hours to finish (with 21% of respondents spending 1-5 hours, 24% spending 6-10 hours, and 31% spending 11-30 hours on a typical project).
We did not find a direct correlation between the time spent and amount earned per DIY project.
Project cost correlates with project completion time (more than 87% of participants who spend under $25 on a project finish it in under 30 hours, while more than half of projects that cost above $500 require over 100 hours to finish).
For 66% of respondents, a typical project takes less than 30 hours to finish (with 21% of respondents spending 1-5 hours, 24% spending 6-10 hours, and 31% spending 11-30 hours on a typical project).
We did not find a direct correlation between the time spent and amount earned per DIY project.
STEP 7: Motivations for Working on DIY Projects
An overwhelming majority (97%) of our participants work on DIY projects in order to “Express myself/be creative”.
“Learn new skills” is the second most supported motivation for doing DIY work (52% agree, 39% strongly agree).
The least popular reason is to “Gain internet fame or reputation” with more than 70% of respondents disagreeing or strongly disagreeing with this motivation. “Make money” is the second least popular motivation (25% disagree, 15% strongly disagree).
“Learn new skills” is the second most supported motivation for doing DIY work (52% agree, 39% strongly agree).
The least popular reason is to “Gain internet fame or reputation” with more than 70% of respondents disagreeing or strongly disagreeing with this motivation. “Make money” is the second least popular motivation (25% disagree, 15% strongly disagree).
STEP 8: Sharing DIY Projects With DIY Communities
More than 90% of our respondents share at least some of their projects with DIY communities.
Lack of time is the primary reason for not sharing projects with DIY communities, as indicated by over half of our respondents. Other common deterrents are respondents’ negative assessments of their projects (lack of creativity, novelty or complexity).
Less than 10% cite poor editing or uploading skills as a reason for not sharing, and slightly more respondents (15%) indicate that they do not have the right equipment to document their work.
Lack of time is the primary reason for not sharing projects with DIY communities, as indicated by over half of our respondents. Other common deterrents are respondents’ negative assessments of their projects (lack of creativity, novelty or complexity).
Less than 10% cite poor editing or uploading skills as a reason for not sharing, and slightly more respondents (15%) indicate that they do not have the right equipment to document their work.
STEP 9: Influential Aspects of DIY Communities
Lastly, we asked which aspects of DIY communities tend to influence our respondents' DIY projects.
The majority of out respondents emphasize images of other projects (over 60%), followed by step-by-step instructions (over 40%). Surprisingly, feedback on projects is found “very influential” by less than 20% of participants, despite the fact that it is one of the most frequent contributions.
Despite being the least common contribution, videos are deemed ‘very influential’ by almost 17% of respondents.
The majority of out respondents emphasize images of other projects (over 60%), followed by step-by-step instructions (over 40%). Surprisingly, feedback on projects is found “very influential” by less than 20% of participants, despite the fact that it is one of the most frequent contributions.
Despite being the least common contribution, videos are deemed ‘very influential’ by almost 17% of respondents.
STEP 10: Thanks!
Our work explores DIY as a vibrant culture with a long history of learning, creating and sharing. We hope that our study inspires more discussion and future collaboration within and across DIY and academic communities.
We thank everyone for completing our survey!
Feel free to check out our paper or download the full slide deck as a pdf or a set of images
We thank everyone for completing our survey!
Feel free to check out our paper or download the full slide deck as a pdf or a set of images
17 Comments
rontexas1 4 years ago
kelseymh 13 years ago
Putting aside the low statistics of Dorkbot and Adafruit, how similar or different were the Instructables vs. Etsy responses? Were there significant differences by gender, or by age group?
And no, I haven't yet read the paper. If all that stuff is in there, just tell me to go read it :-)
staceyk 13 years ago
kelseymh 13 years ago
Lithium Rain 13 years ago
staceyk 13 years ago
ewilhelm 13 years ago
To the points about who responded, which seem to be the crux of many of the comments: It's difficult for me to judge the seriousness of requests to run surveys on Instructables. We get a couple of these types of requests per month (from non-advertisers), and I usually suggest posting a forum topic rather than immediately offering to run house ads or something more visible outside the forums. The forums tend to represent the core Instructables audience and not reach casual visitors, who make up some 90% of our traffic. Since Etsy's traffic is around 2-3x Instructables, their higher respondent rate makes sense. On Craftster and Ravelry, the forums, or their equivalent, are the core of the site, so posting in them reaches a higher percentage of the total community. I would be very surprised if the respondent rate as defined by number of people taking the survey divided by the number that saw the request for a survey was drastically different across the various sites. Since it's now clear you are serious and are doing good work, if you're looking for more data, let me know and we'll work something out.
Finally, for more demographic information, be sure not to miss Quantcast. http://www.quantcast.com/instructables.com vs. http://www.quantcast.com/craftster.org can be enlightening as to why your data is so heavily skewed female.
metrometro 13 years ago
Culturespy 13 years ago
randofo 13 years ago
I see there is a small overlap between people interested in Craft/Food and Electronics, which from experience with this site, I don't find altogether surprising. However, typically, this breaks down heavily along gender lines and your three largest sampled sites are almost entirely female dominated.
I wonder if you had taken larger samples from some other more technical DIY sites and communities (Make, Ponoko, Hack Pittsburgh, NYC Resistor, Noisebridge), if you would have different results in some of the graphs, especially considering the small overlap between the interests of the two groups. I feel that more technical DIYers (and by extension gender males) are under-represented in these findings. If you were to altogether remove the results from Instructables, Dorkbot and Adafruit, do you think any of the findings would drastically change?
Also, the fact that art is the third largest category is mildly surprising and it would be interesting to know more about why people selected that.
staceyk 13 years ago
Instructables actually has more members than Ravelry or Craftster, so it's interesting that the response rate was lower (or alternatively, why the craft folks were a lot more responsive).
When we initially picked the 6 communities, we were hoping to get a somewhat even spread. In fact, our original goal was to compare/contrast findings from communities such as Dorkbot (in-person presentations of 'art'-related projects) vs Craftster ('hip craft') vs Adafruit (tech-focused) vs Instructables (all domains welcome). In fact, we learned that DIY enthusiasts tend to not belong to a single exclusive DIY community, but contribute to many groups and project domains (at least this is true for our respondents, but certainly not all DIY hobbyists).
An interesting follow-up project could actually try to compare/contrast tech vs. craft DIY enthusiasts' practices and motivations. But as someone who dabbles in a bit of everything, I suspect the motivations to 'learn' and 'be creative' might be equally supported across different DIY domains...
randofo 13 years ago
For step 8, we have gotten very similar results. Most people tend to feel they have nothing worthwhile to share or are too intimidated by other people to share their work.
It would have been nice to see a more varied sample group for steps 4 and 7.
Another cool thing to have asked would have been time spent making things. That would be interesting to see in contrast to money spent/earned.
I'm sorry not enough people responded. It's hard to get people to take action from our forums. Most of the interaction on our site happens on the projects themselves.
Thanks for sharing this and I'm sorry if it seems like I'm giving you a hard time. This is a subject that is of great interest to me and I'm comparing notes :-)
omnibot 13 years ago
EmmettO 13 years ago
staceyk 13 years ago
jeff-o 13 years ago
kelseymh 13 years ago