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.

P H O T O B Y M I R I A M S T U R D E E . S K E T C H © M A K A Y L A L E W I S