“I’m Better Off on my Own”: Understanding How a Tutorial’s Medium Affects Physical Skill Development
Abstract
The shift towards distance learning brought forth by the pandemic
has highlighted the shortcomings of teaching physical skills at a
distance. With the emergence of new augmented and connected
mediums, new opportunities arise for transferring physical skills
that have resisted traditional documentation methods. However,
there lacks a framework that allows tutorial authors to capitalize
on a new medium’s unique affordances rather than remediating
existing tutorial conventions. Our work analyzes a body of tutorials
rendered in various mediums for centering clay on a pottery wheel
— a foundational skill that exemplifies the difficulties of physical
skill transfer. Through the lens of McLuhan’s “The Medium is the
Message” we synthesize a taxonomy of medium conventions and
themes derived from analyzing a body of centering tutorials and observation of how a tutorial’s medium affects how learners develop
physical skills. We leverage our findings to motivate design recommendations to inform how new mediums can support material
practices.