# Mosaic: Designing Online Creative Communities for Sharing Works-in-Progress

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/1611.02666 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/1611.02666/

## Key facts

- Cited by 4 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- First posted on arXiv 8 Nov 2016.

## Built on by (most cited first, 4 of 4)

- [Scratch Copilot: Supporting Youth Creative Coding with AI](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.03867/) (2025)
- [AI Friends: A Design Framework for AI-Powered Creative Programming for Youth](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.10412/) (2023)
- [How Could AI Support Design Education? A Study Across Fields Fuels Situating Analytics](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.17390/) (2024)
- [From Style Replication to Style Exploration: Enabling Art Style Exploration with Analyze-Experiment-Resituate Framework](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2608.14405/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Online creative communities allow creators to share their work with a large audience, maximizing opportunities to showcase their work and connect with fans and peers. However, sharing in-progress work can be technically and socially challenging in environments designed for sharing completed pieces. We propose an online creative community where sharing process, rather than showcasing outcomes, is the main method of sharing creative work. Based on this, we present Mosaic---an online community where illustrators share work-in-progress snapshots showing how an artwork was completed from start to finish. In an online deployment and observational study, artists used Mosaic as a vehicle for reflecting on how they can improve their own creative process, developed a social norm of detailed feedback, and became less apprehensive of sharing early versions of artwork. Through Mosaic, we argue that communities oriented around sharing creative process can create a collaborative environment that is beneficial for creative growth.