Description:
This article reflects on how sharing documentation of subjective viewpoints on complex participatory projects can contribute to end-user development in or generativity of projects. We will discuss the documentation approaches of some participatory projects that combine the development of software and hardware in a cultural, social or health context with groups of participants with an eye on generating ongoing participation. We will also describe how we, inspired by these projects, developed 1. a “thick documentation” approach, based on a collaborative mapping method called MAP-it 2. that provides a dynamic view, revealing the diverse subjective perspectives on the project; 3. that motivates different types of makers and participants to participate in documenting; 4. that aims for generativity. We evaluated our approach on these 4 goals and propose future challenges.