Levels of formality in diagram presentation

Abstract

The incremental beautification of hand-drawn diagrams is a process that is poorly understood. Thus implementation of beautification techniques in computer-based sketch tools is ad hoc, with most only supporting the ends of the spectrum: handdrawn and fully formalized. Hand-drawn diagrams are more effective for early design and review but users are more satisfied with formal designs. This suggests that there may be applications for intermediate levels of formality. By understanding the attributes of visual formality it is possible to beautify a diagram progressively, thereby achieving visually consistent intermediate levels of formality. Here we present a taxonomy of the attributes of visual formality and the implementation of this taxonomy into a sketch tool.

SketchSet: Creating Euler diagrams using pen or mouse

“…The visualization was similar: 5 preferred formal, while sketch and no preference were 4 and 3 respectively. This contradicts [25] where users showed a clear preference for the more formal visualizations.…”

“…Each part has its own challenges: when moving from sketch to formal one could inadvertently change the semantics, and when moving from formal to sketch one has to ensure that the hand-drawn appearance is maintained, for example. Of note is that a sketch representation of design problems has been shown to have advantages for eliciting self-talk back and feedback from others [7], [8], [25]. In addition, generating a realistic pseudo-sketch is non-trivial.…”

“…To possess these benefits, the computer-based sketch tools interaction must be carefully designed with particular attention to retaining the hand-drawn appearance in the initial stages of the diagram's creation [17]. However, people often prefer more formal visualizations over the sketch [25]. Therefore, tools should facilitate dual representations and, moreover, allow the user to interact with both the sketch and formal diagram.…”

Towards realism in drawing areas of interest on architecture diagrams

“…In particular, the RCA tool manages user-drawn annotations to fit around edited source code in an IDE, which is similar to our requirement that AOIs should fit the elements they enclose, regardless of their layout [31]. Beautification issues of hand-drawn diagrams and annotations are discussed by Plimmer and Grundy [32] and Yeung et al [33]. Identified desirable issues such as annotation line smoothness, annotation constrainment to user-specified layouts, and the use of a natural stroke or flow-of-hand, are all directly relevant to our computer-drawn AOIs.…”

Combining Sketching and Traditional Diagram Editing Tools

“…Shapes can typically be rotated and scaled by mouse input. Formal diagrams also have a role to play, in part because of the perception that sketches are incomplete, unfinished or inaccurate in some way [Yeung et al 2008]. In addition, the formal diagram is generally required for distribution.…”