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Between the Lines: A Comparative Study of Freeform-Based Knowledge-Map-Creation with Paper and Tablet

Published: 07 May 2016 Publication History

Abstract

Our research question is: can digital media work as a substitute for traditional pen-and-paper, and can it enhance or support our thinking process? Affordances of paper versus digital and in particular around sketching have been largely discussed in the past. People often prefer pen and paper or whiteboards to software when it comes to the early stages of sensemaking tasks. Nowadays pen-enabled tablet-PCs are supposed to offer a sketching experience similar to pen and paper with good computation power and the ability to respond in real-time to user interactions. Therefore the question arises: how should pen-based interaction and user interfaces be designed to be more productive than pen and paper? We created a prototype tablet application called SketchViz focusing on easy restructuring of information for users and conducted a study comparing both the interactions and visual representations of 25 participants performing a given task using either pen and paper or SketchViz. The results show, that the visual representations made using the prototype were very similar to those made using pen and paper. Users especially liked the way the application allowed them to change size and position of drawn objects on the virtual canvas (which is different from current tools). They also mentioned having a better possibility to switch between detail and overview. Mainly due to technical problems, working with pen and paper was rated easier and was less time consuming. We conclude that if these problems are fixed, SketchViz will offer an interesting starting point for a digital alternative to pen and paper for the early stages of sensemaking tasks.

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  • (2019)InkPlanner: Supporting Prewriting via Intelligent Visual DiagrammingIEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics10.1109/TVCG.2018.286488725:1(277-287)Online publication date: 1-Jan-2019

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    cover image ACM Conferences
    CHI EA '16: Proceedings of the 2016 CHI Conference Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems
    May 2016
    3954 pages
    ISBN:9781450340823
    DOI:10.1145/2851581
    Permission to make digital or hard copies of part or all of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for third-party components of this work must be honored. For all other uses, contact the Owner/Author.

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    Publication History

    Published: 07 May 2016

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    Author Tags

    1. comparative study
    2. freeform interaction
    3. knowledge maps
    4. pen and paper
    5. pen based interaction
    6. sketching

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    CHI'16: CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
    May 7 - 12, 2016
    California, San Jose, USA

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    Overall Acceptance Rate 6,164 of 23,696 submissions, 26%

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    • (2019)InkPlanner: Supporting Prewriting via Intelligent Visual DiagrammingIEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics10.1109/TVCG.2018.286488725:1(277-287)Online publication date: 1-Jan-2019

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