Producing Printability: Articulation Work and Alignment in 3D Printing

Abstract

Three-dimensional printing is widely celebrated as enabling open design and manufacturing practice. With easy-to-use techniques such as automated modeling, fabrication machines ostensibly help designers turn ideas into fully fledged objects. Prior HCI literature focuses on improving printing through optimization and by developing printer and material capabilities. This paper expands such considerations by asking, how do 3D printing practitioners understand and create “printability?” And how might HCI better support the work that holds together printing workflows and changing ecosystems of materials and techniques? We conducted studies in two sites of open design: a technology firm in Silicon Valley, California and a makerspace in Stockholm, Sweden. Deploying workshops and interviews, we examine how practitioners negotiate the print experience, revealing a contingent process held together by trial and error exploration and careful interventions. These insights point to the value of tools and processes to support articulation work, what Strauss and colleagues have called the acts of fitting together people, tasks, and their ordering to accomplish an overarching project. We show that despite the sought-after efficiencies of such manufacturing, 3D printing entails articulation work, particularly acts of alignment, exposing messy modes of production carried out by a varied cast of practitioners, machines, and materials.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Kristin N Dew

Kristin N Dew ([email protected]) is a design researcher with an interest in fabrication practices and materials; she is a PhD Candidate in the Department of Human Centered Design & Engineering of the University of Washington.

Sophie Landwehr-Sydow

Sophie Landwehr-Sydow ([email protected]) is a design researcher with an interest in maker practices; she is a PhD Candidate in the School of Natural Sciences, Technology and Environmental Studies of Södertörn University and also affiliated with the Department of Computer and Systems Sciences of Stockholm University.

Daniela K Rosner

Daniela K Rosner ([email protected]) is a design researcher with an interest in design research methods; she is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Human Centered Design & Engineering at the University of Washington.

Alex Thayer

Alex Thayer ([email protected]) is a design researcher with an interest in technology experiences; he is Chief Experience Architect of the Immersive Experiences Lab of HP Labs.

Martin Jonsson

Martin Jonsson ([email protected]) is a design researcher with an interest in embodied interaction; he is an Associate Professor in the School of Natural Sciences, Technology and Environmental Studies of Södertörn University.