Some years ago, we the authors
came together by chance at CHI,
having been introduced over social
media by mutual friends who saw our
shared interest and activity around
sketching in research and urged us
to meet. While presenting work
on comics, creating sketch-noted
documentation of workshops, and
attending sessions, we put together
the bones of a plan to bring together
those already engaged in sketching
research to further elucidate this
area as an emergent field. Our first
workshop at Designing Interactive
Systems (DIS) 2017 led to the
creation of the Sketching in HCI
network (https://sketchingdis.
wordpress.com/), bringing together
researchers from areas as diverse as
gamification, jewelry design, shape-changing interfaces, and InfoVis,
while an entry-level tutorial we ran at
NordiCHI 2016 (https://sketchinghci.
wordpress.com/) proved there is a
burgeoning interest in learning how
to use sketching in research by a wider
body of novices.
For the past few years, CHI has
hosted courses in sketching, sometimes
more than one. In the meantime,
we’ve seen the rise of visual facilitation
in the workshop setting, and the
graphic recording of conferences has
become a popular method for note-taking and reflection, engagement,
and the dissemination of proceedings
(Figure 5). Concern for sketching
practice in HCI is also not limited to
special interest groups and courses.
Researchers use sketching either
formally or informally in various
avenues of research, evident in a
number of demos and presentations at
the CHI conference in Montreal this
year. This interest is also not limited to
process and presentation; for example,
trying to breach the divide between
digital and paper-based drawing has
long been a focus of those who seek to
unlock the mystery of why we appear to
prefer visual thinking offline, or how we
might merge AI and the drawn image.
Others seek to harness the power of the
stylus and the human mind in novel
tools and systems designed to enhance
user experiences.
Sketching can be a valuable part of
all stages of HCI research, but we are
perhaps most familiar with it as part of
the ideation process, forming links in
the mind and creating novel forms from
the ether [ 3]. These insights do not have
to be at the hands of the researcher,
either; the same encouragement can
be used to elicit input from study
participants for subsequent analysis
or development. Sketching especially
comes into its own when we summarize
research [ 4] or examine things that do
not yet exist, as with the interfaces of
the future [ 5]. All made objects were
represented by thoughtful imagery
at some point; by putting the power
of visualization into the hands of as
many researchers and participants as
possible, we expand the potential of our
field exponentially.
Curious, and wanting to understand
and promote sketching in HCI, we
documented instances and uses of
sketching in all its forms at CHI,
including our own contributions. We
collected what we found using the
#CHI2018 and #SketCHI hashtags
together on Twitter (https://bit.
ly/2Q5XNS2), as well as encouraging
others to do so. This record remains
in the public sphere and provides a
visual (and sketched) narrative of the
conference relating to the human-
drawn image.
HOW WE LEARNED TO STOP
WORRYING AND START
LOVING TO DRAW
As part of the drive to encourage
interest in sketching, we chose to bring
sketching to our Alt.CHI paper session,
which was already hosting group
chanting, a live painting demonstration,
and 15 minutes of silence. Alt.CHI
is a daring collection of challenges,
provocations, and explorations that
live at the fringes of HCI, therefore
presenting a unique opportunity to
explicitly disrupt the status quo while
presenting highly original works.
Under the umbrella of the newly
realized #SketCHI hashtag, we sought
to actively engage the audience to take
part in a sketching exercise by creating
a cyclical presentation-exhibition of
discourse and imagery. Sketch and the
Lizard King: Supporting Image Inclusion
in HCI Publishing [ 6] is a comic-based
analysis of image use in HCI that
suggests leniency in page length or
format when publishing work that
would benefit from increased visuals.
It culminates in a call to arms for CHI
to consider changes to how it presents
research.
By enabling the audience (supplying
pens, pencils, paper, and Post-it
notes) and presenting the talk entirely
using a live Twitter feed, we solicited
responsive sketches, examining and
AFigure 3. An attendee shares a storyboard.
Figure 4. Live sketching by Makayla Lewis during the HCI Improv.
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