Sociality and Skill Sharing in the Garden

TL;DR

This paper explores how experienced gardeners use social and collaborative technologies to share skills and configure their environments, emphasizing the importance of sociality and skill sharing in outdoor gardening activities.

Contribution

It provides new insights into sociality and skill sharing in outdoor gardening, informing design considerations for collaborative technologies in such settings.

Findings

Gardeners configure environments for social preferences

Sharing embodied skills facilitates learning and attunement

Garden features influence social interactions and skill sharing

Abstract

Gardening is an activity that involves a number of dimensions of increasing interest to HCI and CSCW researchers, including recreation, sustainability, and engagement with nature. This paper considers the garden setting in order to understand the role that collaborative and social computing technologies might play for practitioners engaging in outdoor skilled activities. We conducted participant observations with nine experienced gardeners aged 22-71 years. Through this process, we find that gardeners continuously configure their environments to accommodate their preferences for sociality. They share embodied skills and help others attune to sensory information in person, but also influence learning through the features in their garden that are observed by others. This paper provides an understanding of sociality in the garden, highlights skill sharing as a key domain for design in this space, and contributes design considerations for collaborative technologies in outdoor settings.