The Visibility of Practice
Slide Idea
This slide argues that intermediate materials from creative and technical workflows—materials typically discarded after project delivery—contain essential evidence of reasoning processes that would otherwise remain invisible. These materials reveal where judgment occurs, how initial intentions are interpreted and translated into action, and whether decisions ultimately succeed or fail in achieving their intended outcomes. Examining preserved decision traces enables understanding of the craft logic that underlies finished work, and authorship emerges not merely through final outputs but through the cumulative processes of revision, selection among alternatives, and justification of choices.
Key Concepts & Definitions
Decision Traces
Decision traces are documented evidence of choices made during work processes, including records of what was decided, when, what alternatives were considered, what reasoning informed the selection, and what consequences resulted. Unlike final deliverables that display only chosen outcomes, decision traces preserve the deliberative process—the consideration of options, application of criteria, and exercise of judgment that shaped final work. In professional practice, decision traces may be preserved through version control commit messages, design rationale documents, annotated prototypes, meeting notes, or marked-up drafts. These traces become particularly valuable retrospectively: when revisiting projects months or years later, when diagnosing why certain approaches succeeded or failed, when teaching novices about decision-making patterns, or when defending choices to stakeholders who lack context about constraints and trade-offs.
Source: Latour, B. (1987). Science in action: How to follow scientists and engineers through society. Harvard University Press.
Craft Logic
Craft logic refers to the systematic reasoning, judgment patterns, and problem-solving approaches that characterize skilled practice within a domain. Unlike formal logic based on universal principles, craft logic is domain-specific and context-dependent—it incorporates technical knowledge, aesthetic sensibilities, practical constraints, conventional practices, and accumulated wisdom about what works in particular situations. Film editors develop craft logic about pacing, rhythm, and continuity; writers develop craft logic about sentence structure, argumentation, and audience engagement; engineers develop craft logic about system architecture, failure modes, and performance optimization. Craft logic operates partly through explicit principles ("match on action to maintain continuity") and partly through tacit pattern recognition ("this cut feels right"). Studying decision traces makes craft logic visible by revealing how practitioners apply domain-specific reasoning to specific problems.
Source: Sennett, R. (2008). The craftsman. Yale University Press.
Authorship Through Process
Traditional conceptions of authorship emphasize final creative products—the completed film, the published text, the shipped software. This slide proposes a complementary understanding: authorship emerges through processes of revision, selection, and justification that transform initial materials through iterative decision-making. An author is not merely someone who produces output but someone who exercises judgment about what to keep, what to discard, what to emphasize, how to structure, and how to justify choices. This conception aligns with practices in many creative domains where authorship credit reflects not just generation of material but also editorial control—the selection, arrangement, and refinement that shapes raw material into coherent work. Documentary evidence of revision, selection, and justification provides concrete evidence of authorial agency beyond simple output generation.
Source: Bowen, J., & Dittmar, A. (2017). Identifying the interplay of design artifacts and decisions in practice: A case study. In R. Bernhaupt et al. (Eds.), Human-computer interaction—INTERACT 2017 (Vol. 10513, pp. 503-512). Springer.
Intent Interpretation
Intent interpretation is the process by which initial creative or technical goals—often expressed ambiguously or abstractly—get translated into specific implementable actions and concrete artifacts. This translation is neither straightforward nor mechanical: it requires judgment about what the stated intent actually means in practice, what constraints apply, what trade-offs are acceptable, and how abstract goals map onto specific technical or creative choices. A director's intent to create a "tense scene" must be interpreted by cinematographers (through lighting choices), editors (through pacing decisions), and sound designers (through audio treatment)—each interpretation shapes how the abstract intent manifests concretely. Documentation of how intent gets interpreted reveals the gap between initial vision and realized work, the judgment required to bridge that gap, and the multiple valid ways abstract goals can be operationalized.
Source: Li, Y., et al. (2024). How students interpret and value documentation. International Journal of Technology and Design Education.
Intermediate Materials
Intermediate materials are artifacts created during work processes that are neither initial inputs nor final deliverables but rather represent stages of transformation, exploration, or development. In traditional workflows, intermediate materials often disappear after project completion: rough cuts get deleted once final edits are approved, exploratory code branches get discarded when features ship, draft manuscripts get overwritten by published versions, design iterations get archived when final specifications release. Yet intermediate materials contain valuable information about the development process—they show what directions were explored, what problems were encountered, how understanding evolved, and what alternatives were rejected. Preserving intermediate materials creates historical records enabling retrospective analysis of process.
Source: Chen, K., et al. (2021). Probing documentation practices: Reflecting on students' experiences in making education. NSF-Peer Reviewed.
Success and Failure of Decisions
Decisions succeed or fail not in abstract but in relation to specific contexts, constraints, and criteria. A decision might succeed technically (achieving functional requirements) while failing aesthetically (producing visually unappealing results), or succeed artistically (creating powerful emotional impact) while failing practically (exceeding budget constraints). Evaluating whether decisions succeeded requires clarity about what criteria mattered: What was the decision intended to achieve? What constraints applied? What trade-offs were accepted? Decision traces that document not just choices but also intended outcomes and evaluation criteria enable meaningful assessment of success and failure. This assessment supports learning: understanding why particular decisions failed helps practitioners avoid similar failures; understanding why decisions succeeded helps identify patterns worth repeating.
Source: Rabiger, M., & Hurbis-Cherrier, M. (2013). Directing: Film techniques and aesthetics (5th ed.). Focal Press.
Why This Matters for Students' Work
The visibility of practice—making intermediate materials and decision traces accessible rather than allowing them to disappear—addresses fundamental challenges in learning creative and technical skills.
Traditional pedagogical models emphasize learning through observation of finished work and through production of one's own final deliverables. Students study completed films, read published writing, examine shipped software, and then attempt to produce similar finished work themselves. This model provides access to outcomes but limited access to processes. Students see what skilled practitioners produce but not how they produced it—not the alternatives considered and rejected, not the problems encountered and solved, not the reasoning that informed choices. This creates an information gap: students must infer process from products, reconstruct decision-making from outcomes, and guess at reasoning that remains undocumented.
Making intermediate materials visible addresses this gap by providing evidence of process alongside products. When students examine rough cuts alongside final edits, they can observe what changed and potentially infer why. When they review rejected design alternatives with annotations about why they were rejected, they gain access to evaluation criteria that would otherwise remain implicit. When they trace specification revisions, they see how problem understanding evolved rather than assuming final specifications emerged fully formed. This visibility supports learning by making expert reasoning observable and analyzable.
The concept of craft logic highlights what students need to learn beyond technical skills: domain-specific judgment patterns, problem-solving heuristics, and situated reasoning approaches. Craft logic cannot be taught solely through abstract principles because it involves knowing how principles apply in context, when exceptions are appropriate, and what trade-offs different choices entail. Students develop craft logic through experience—through making, evaluating, and revising their own work. However, this experiential learning accelerates when students can also observe how experienced practitioners apply craft logic to similar problems. Decision traces make this observation possible by documenting not just what practitioners chose but how they reasoned about choices.
Understanding authorship through process rather than solely through output has particular relevance for work with generative systems. When systems generate output, questions arise about authorship and creative agency: Who is the author—the system, the person who prompted it, both, neither? Framing authorship as emerging through revision, selection, and justification provides a concrete answer: authorship involves exercising judgment about what generated material to use, how to refine it, how to integrate it with other material, and how to justify these choices. Students who document their revision, selection, and justification processes create evidence of authorial agency that extends beyond simply generating output. This documentation becomes particularly important in contexts where provenance and attribution matter.
Intent interpretation reveals a pervasive challenge in creative and technical work: abstract goals must be operationalized into concrete actions, and this translation requires judgment. Students often struggle with this translation—they may have clear high-level visions but difficulty determining what specific actions will realize those visions. Studying how experienced practitioners interpret intent provides models for this translation process. Additionally, documenting one's own intent interpretation process creates records that support iteration: when initial attempts prove unsatisfactory, documented interpretations help diagnose whether the problem lies in flawed interpretation of sound intent or accurate interpretation of unclear intent.
The framework of success and failure of decisions emphasizes that learning occurs through examining not just what worked but why it worked, and not just what failed but why it failed. Students who preserve intermediate materials and decision traces create the raw material for this examination. After completing projects, students can retrospectively analyze their decisions: Which choices contributed to successes? Which choices caused problems? What assumptions proved incorrect? What constraints were underestimated? This metacognitive analysis, supported by preserved process artifacts, converts experience into systematic learning rather than vague impressions.
How This Shows Up in Practice (Non-Tool-Specific)
Filmmaking and Media Production
Film editors routinely create multiple cut variations exploring different pacing, rhythm, and juxtaposition choices. A single scene might exist in a slow-paced version emphasizing contemplative mood, a fast-paced version emphasizing urgency, and variations trying different performance takes or music cues. Traditional editing workflows preserve these alternatives temporarily during active editing but delete them once the final cut is approved and the project delivers. However, some directors and editors maintain "version libraries"—archives of alternative cuts with annotations about what each version emphasized and why particular versions were selected or rejected.
These preserved alternatives reveal craft logic about editorial decision-making. An editor might note: "Fast-paced version (v3) created more urgency but sacrificed emotional development established in earlier scenes. Moderate-paced version (v5) balanced urgency with character development. Selected v5 with modifications to first and third acts." Such documentation makes visible the reasoning—the trade-off evaluation, the criteria application, and the contextual judgment—that informed the final cut. Film students studying these annotated alternatives gain access to editorial craft logic that finished films conceal.
Similarly, cinematographers conducting lighting tests create intermediate materials documenting different approaches. These tests might compare high-key versus low-key lighting, different color temperatures, various practical source placements, or alternative shadow patterns. When preserved with annotation about narrative function, mood goals, and technical constraints, these tests become pedagogical resources revealing how abstract directorial intent ("create unease") gets interpreted through specific technical choices (hard sidelighting creating stark shadows suggesting psychological instability).
Design
Interaction designers generate numerous interface variations during iterative design processes. Early variations might explore fundamentally different organizational structures, interaction paradigms, or visual hierarchies. Later iterations refine selected directions through detail adjustments. Traditional design workflows preserve iterations during active projects but archive or delete them once designs ship. However, design teams that maintain documented iteration histories—showing not just what designs looked like at different stages but why changes were made—create valuable institutional knowledge.
These iteration histories reveal how design problems were understood and reframed over time. Initial iterations might assume users need maximum feature access (suggesting complex interfaces with many visible controls), while later iterations might reframe the problem as users needing focused task support (suggesting simplified interfaces hiding secondary functions). Documentation capturing this problem reframing—perhaps through annotated wireframes showing how user research findings prompted structural changes—makes visible the evolution of design understanding rather than presenting only final solutions.
Product designers working on physical artifacts create prototypes representing different stages of refinement. Early prototypes might explore form alternatives using low-fidelity materials (cardboard, foam) enabling rapid iteration. Intermediate prototypes might test specific functional aspects (grip ergonomics, mechanical operation). Final prototypes approach production quality for validation testing. Design firms that photograph prototypes throughout development and maintain "prototype journals" with annotations about what each version tested and what was learned create documentation of their design process visible to future team members and clients.
Writing
Professional writers produce multiple drafts representing different developmental stages. Early drafts might explore organizational structures later abandoned—attempting chronological narrative before switching to thematic organization, or trying first-person perspective before shifting to third-person. Intermediate drafts might substantially revise argumentation—reframing claims, incorporating new evidence, or addressing anticipated counterarguments. Final drafts involve sentence-level refinement—clarifying unclear passages, varying rhythm, eliminating redundancy.
Writers who preserve draft versions and annotate revision decisions create visible records of their writing process. Such annotation might document: "Revised organizational structure from chronological to thematic because chronological created redundancy across chapters—key concepts appeared multiple times without cumulative development. Thematic organization allows each chapter to fully develop one concept with examples spanning multiple time periods." This documented reasoning reveals craft logic about structure—specifically how organizational choices interact with content development goals—that published writing conceals.
Collaborative writing adds complexity to authorship questions. When multiple writers contribute, who is the author? Preserved revision histories with attribution can document authorship as emerging through contribution, selection, and refinement processes. Version control systems capture who wrote initial material, who revised it, who integrated it with other sections, and who made final editorial decisions. This documented process provides concrete evidence of distributed authorial agency rather than relying on vague collaboration narratives.
Computing and Engineering
Software developers create branches for experimental features, alternative implementations, and exploratory prototypes. Version control systems preserve these branches and their commit histories, creating detailed records of development decisions. Commit messages document not just what changed but often why: "Refactored authentication module to use token-based approach instead of session-based. Session approach caused scaling problems under high concurrent load. Token approach stateless, enables horizontal scaling." Such messages make visible the reasoning—the problem diagnosis, the solution rationale, the trade-off acceptance—underlying code evolution.
Code review processes generate documented technical discussions about implementation choices. Reviewers might question algorithmic complexity, suggest alternative approaches, or identify edge cases. Developers respond by explaining their reasoning, modifying implementations, or documenting why suggested changes are not appropriate given current constraints. These review threads capture craft logic about software engineering—how practitioners reason about performance, maintainability, correctness, and trade-offs—in context of specific technical problems.
Systems engineers document design decisions through architecture decision records (ADRs) that capture context (what circumstances prompted a decision), options considered (what alternatives were available), decision (what was chosen), and consequences (what trade-offs were accepted). This structured documentation makes visible the reasoning underlying system architecture. An ADR might document: "Decision: Use message queue for asynchronous processing. Context: Synchronous processing created timeout problems for long-running operations. Options: polling, webhooks, message queue. Consequences: Added operational complexity (queue maintenance), improved user experience (immediate response), enabled better failure recovery."
Common Misunderstandings
"Intermediate materials are rough drafts without value beyond their developmental function"
This view treats intermediate materials as merely transitional states toward final work—scaffolding that becomes irrelevant once construction completes. The misunderstanding fails to recognize that intermediate materials contain information about process that finished work cannot convey: what alternatives were explored, what problems were encountered, how understanding evolved, and what reasoning informed choices. A rough cut does not merely precede a final edit; it documents what the editor tried, what effects resulted, and what judgments led to revisions. Discarding intermediate materials eliminates this process information. The confusion may stem from evaluative contexts that rightly prioritize finished work—intermediate materials may indeed be inadequate as finished products. However, their value for understanding process differs from their value as completed work. Professional practices that preserve intermediate materials with documentation recognize this dual function: artifacts serve immediate developmental purposes during creation and retrospective analytical purposes after completion.
"Decision traces are primarily defensive documentation—evidence created for accountability or dispute resolution"
In some organizational contexts, documentation functions primarily as defensive measure: creating audit trails that demonstrate compliance, establishing attribution for blame allocation, or providing evidence for contractual disputes. This association can make documentation feel adversarial or punitive. The misunderstanding conflates one use of documentation (accountability enforcement) with its broader cognitive and pedagogical functions. Decision traces serve practitioners directly by externalizing reasoning that supports their own learning, by creating institutional memory that prevents knowledge loss, and by facilitating collaboration through shared understanding of choices. When documentation becomes primarily defensive, it often becomes superficial—recording just enough to satisfy compliance requirements without capturing meaningful reasoning. Effective decision traces serve cognitive functions first; accountability benefits emerge as byproducts rather than primary purposes.
"Authorship is determined by who generates initial content, not by who revises and selects"
This misconception treats generation as the essential creative act and subsequent revision, selection, and refinement as secondary editorial work. In some contexts—particularly those emphasizing originality and first creation—this prioritization makes sense. However, many creative and technical domains recognize that authorial control extends beyond initial generation. Film directors receive authorial credit not because they generate footage but because they control selection and assembly. Editors shape published texts through selection and arrangement of material they did not write. Curators create exhibitions through selection and juxtaposition of works they did not produce. The slide's framework of "authorship through revision, selection, and justification" recognizes that creative agency involves judgment about what material to use and how to use it—not solely generation of raw material. This becomes particularly relevant for work involving generative systems: when systems produce output, authorial agency resides in how that output gets evaluated, selected, refined, and integrated—the processes documented through decision traces.
"Craft logic can be fully articulated as explicit rules or principles"
This misunderstanding assumes that skilled practice can be completely formalized into codified knowledge transmittable through explicit instruction. While craft knowledge includes explicit principles, it also involves tacit pattern recognition, contextual judgment about when principles apply or require modification, and accumulated experience about what approaches work in particular situations. An editor knows explicit continuity rules (maintain screen direction, match eyelines) but also develops intuitive sense of rhythm and pacing that resists complete formalization. Studying decision traces provides access to craft logic as actually practiced—showing how principles get applied in context, what exceptions occur, and how multiple considerations get balanced. This makes craft logic observable without requiring that it be fully explicated. The goal is not to eliminate tacit knowledge but to make implicit reasoning visible enough to support learning and examination.
Scholarly Foundations
Latour, B. (1987). Science in action: How to follow scientists and engineers through society. Harvard University Press.
Foundational work in science and technology studies proposing that science must be studied "in action"—during the process of making discoveries and building facts—rather than solely by examining finished knowledge claims. Introduces concept of following scientists through their practices, examining laboratory notebooks, draft papers, funding negotiations, and instrument development to understand how scientific knowledge gets constructed. Directly relevant to understanding how decision traces reveal craft logic: Latour demonstrates that finished scientific papers conceal the contingencies, alternatives considered, and negotiations that shaped research. The methodology of studying practice through process artifacts rather than only final outputs provides theoretical grounding for the slide's emphasis on intermediate materials.
Bowen, J., & Dittmar, A. (2017). Identifying the interplay of design artifacts and decisions in practice: A case study. In R. Bernhaupt et al. (Eds.), Human-computer interaction—INTERACT 2017 (Vol. 10513, pp. 503-512). Springer.
Case study examining how design artifacts and decisions interact throughout interaction design processes. Analyzes how designers move between different artifacts (sketches, prototypes, specifications) and how these artifacts support reasoning about design spaces and evolution of designs. Demonstrates that design decisions cannot be understood separately from the artifacts through which they are expressed and reasoned about. Relevant for understanding how intermediate materials make decision-making visible: artifacts externalize thinking and enable examination of how designs evolved through iterative decision-making.
Chen, K., et al. (2021). Probing documentation practices: Reflecting on students' experiences in making education. NSF-Peer Reviewed.
Empirical study examining how students in maker-based learning contexts understand and practice documentation. Finds that students value documentation for making thinking visible, creating evidence of the learning process, and supporting reflection. Identifies tension between documentation as externally-imposed requirement versus documentation as cognitive tool serving learners' own needs. Relevant for understanding pedagogical functions of intermediate materials and decision traces: documentation supports metacognitive awareness when it externalizes processes in ways that enable retrospective examination and learning.
Sennett, R. (2008). The craftsman. Yale University Press.
Philosophical and historical exploration of craftsmanship across domains including carpentry, cooking, music, and programming. Examines how craft knowledge develops through iterative engagement with materials, how tacit skills emerge from repeated practice, and how craft traditions transmit knowledge across generations. Introduces the concept of "craft logic"—domain-specific reasoning patterns that skilled practitioners develop and apply. Particularly relevant for understanding how decision traces reveal craft logic: preserved records of how craftspeople reasoned through specific problems provide access to situated expertise that abstractions cannot capture.
Rabiger, M., & Hurbis-Cherrier, M. (2013). Directing: Film techniques and aesthetics (5th ed.). Focal Press.
Comprehensive text on film directing that extensively discusses decision-making throughout production processes. Addresses how directors interpret scripts into visual plans, how they make on-set decisions about performance and coverage, and how they guide editorial choices. Provides concrete examples of directorial reasoning about technical and aesthetic choices. Relevant for understanding how craft logic operates in filmmaking contexts and how intermediate materials (shot lists, coverage plans, edit notes) document the interpretation of creative intent into implemented choices.
Schön, D. A. (1983). The reflective practitioner: How professionals think in action. Basic Books.
Foundational work on professional practice examining how practitioners make decisions in situations of uncertainty, complexity, and value conflict. Introduces concepts of reflection-in-action and reflection-on-action as modes of professional learning. Emphasizes that professional competence involves more than application of explicit knowledge—it requires judgment, pattern recognition, and contextual reasoning. Relevant for understanding why decision traces matter for learning: retrospective examination of one's own decision-making (reflection-on-action) requires preserved records of what decisions were made and what reasoning informed them.
Li, Y., et al. (2024). How students interpret and value documentation. International Journal of Technology and Design Education.
Research examining how students in project-based learning contexts understand documentation purposes and practices. Finds that explicit and implicit course expectations shape documentation practices significantly, and that students value documentation for evidence of effort, proof of work, and accountability purposes. Also identifies that documentation supports learning when it makes thinking visible and enables reflection. Addresses tension between documentation as compliance requirement versus learning tool. Relevant for pedagogical implementation of decision trace practices with students.
Sterman, S., Cuenca, E., Li, L., & Drucker, S. M. (2020). Towards creative version control. ACM Transactions on Interactive Intelligent Systems, 10(2), 1-44.**
Investigates how version control concepts from software development might support creative work in domains like graphic design, video editing, and interactive media. Examines what creative practitioners need from version history systems, how they currently manage versions informally, and what challenges arise in applying software version control to creative artifacts. Demonstrates that creative practitioners value ability to explore alternatives, compare versions, and retrieve earlier states. Relevant for understanding how intermediate materials function as decision traces in creative workflows and what infrastructures support their preservation and utility.
Boundaries of the Claim
This slide argues that intermediate materials contain essential reasoning evidence typically lost when they disappear after project delivery. It does not claim that all intermediate materials must be preserved indefinitely or that exhaustive documentation of every decision is necessary or valuable. Strategic documentation capturing meaningful decision points serves learning and retrospective analysis; indiscriminate accumulation of all process artifacts creates overwhelming archives without corresponding insight.
The claim that "authorship emerges through revision, selection, and justification" proposes a particular conception of authorship complementing but not replacing other legitimate conceptions. In some contexts—patents, copyright, first publication—authorship may be determined by who generates initial creative expression. The slide's framework applies particularly to contexts involving curation, editing, refinement, and quality control where creative agency extends beyond initial generation.
The slide references professional media practice as exemplar but does not claim these practices are universal or optimal. Professional workflows vary considerably: some organizations maintain extensive process documentation; others work with minimal records. The slide proposes that intermediate materials contain valuable information, not that all professional practices successfully capture and utilize that information.
The framework emphasizes that studying decision traces "reveals the craft logic of filmmaking—not just its outcomes." This addresses filmmaking specifically but extends by analogy to other creative and technical domains. The specific manifestations of craft logic, types of intermediate materials, and documentation practices differ across domains. The general principle—that process artifacts make reasoning visible—applies broadly, but implementation details remain context-dependent.
The slide does not specify what counts as sufficient documentation, what granularity of decision traces proves useful, or how to balance documentation costs against learning benefits. These are implementation questions requiring judgment about specific contexts, learning goals, and resource constraints.
Reflection / Reasoning Check
1. Identify a skill developed through practice—athletic, musical, creative, or technical. If asked to teach this skill to a complete novice, what aspects would be most difficult to explain explicitly? What knowledge exists in performance that cannot be fully articulated? How might a recorded history of the learning process—showing early attempts, problems encountered, and how they were addressed—help a novice understand what is now known implicitly? What would be lost if the only evidence of expertise was current skilled performance?
This question tests whether students understand the relationship between tacit knowledge, craft logic, and the visibility provided by process documentation. An effective response would identify specific aspects of skilled performance that resist explicit articulation (timing, feel, intuitive adjustments, pattern recognition), recognize that current competence conceals the learning process, and articulate how documentation of the journey from novice to practitioner would make visible the development of expertise that finished performance alone cannot convey. The question assesses whether students grasp that expertise includes not just explicit principles but also tacit knowledge developed through experience, and that process documentation captures learning trajectories that outcomes alone conceal.
2. Consider two scenarios: (A) A student uses a generative system to produce an essay, submits the generated text without modification or annotation, and claims it as their work. (B) A student uses a generative system to produce draft material, then substantially revises it, integrates it with their own writing, makes deliberate choices about what to keep or discard, and documents their revision decisions with brief rationale. Using the concept of "authorship through revision, selection, and justification," how would these scenarios be distinguished in terms of authorial agency? What evidence would demonstrate meaningful authorship in scenario B that would be absent in scenario A? What does this suggest about the relationship between process documentation and authorship claims?
This question tests understanding of authorship as emerging through process rather than merely through output generation. An effective response would articulate that scenario A involves minimal authorial agency (direct submission without judgment or modification), while scenario B involves substantial authorial agency through the documented processes of evaluation, selection, revision, and integration. The response should identify that evidence of authorship in scenario B consists of the documented revision decisions showing judgment about quality, appropriateness, and integration—evidence entirely absent in scenario A. The question assesses whether students understand that authorship claims require demonstrable evidence of judgment and decision-making, not merely association with outputs, and that process documentation provides this evidence in contexts involving generative systems.