How to Write Tacit Knowledge as a Pattern Language: Media Design for Spontaneous and Collaborative Communities

In this paper, we propose a procedure for making a pattern language, which describes the tacit knowledge of problem solving and problem finding in a certain domain, by collaboration among people who all have tacit knowledge for the target domain more or less. To demonstrate the procedure, we present our experience of making Learning Patterns, which is a pattern language for creative learning. Then, we discuss the importance of visual representation in pattern languages, and show our examples of illustration. We anticipate that our study opens the discussion for a new methodology for designing media for spontaneous and collaborative communities.