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Sketch Based Interaction Techniques for Chart Creation and Manipulation

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Frontiers in Pen and Touch

Part of the book series: Human–Computer Interaction Series ((HCIS))

Abstract

In a classroom environment, students are often required to extract descriptive statistics from charts, or find an appropriate graphical representation of the data they are given. On paper these drawings are static, but in an interactive learning environment, the exploration of data can be improved. To address this, we present a set of novel interaction techniques for the creation and manipulation of 12 chart types that leverage pen and touch in a prototype application, SketChart. We allow a user to sketch an appropriate chart type to visualize their data, after which, he or she can remove, merge, and filter data through direct manipulations. Data series and points are also managed through a pair of interactive legends. In a formative user study based on a set of typical statistics questions, we find that even with a chart recognition accuracy of only 81%, the overall system was still well received and can be used as a learning tool for descriptive statistics.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Windows, icons, menus, and point and click.

  2. 2.

    http://www.eia.gov/totalenergy/data/annual/showtext.cfm?t=ptb0802a—information related to energy generation. 1989–2011.

  3. 3.

    http://www.census.gov/hhes/socdemo/education/data/cps/historical/tabA-1.xlsx—information related to population. 1970–2011.

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Acknowledgements

This work is supported in part by NSF CAREER award IIS-0845921. The authors thank members of the Interactive Systems and User Experience Research Cluster of Excellence and the CPTTE community for their support and feedback throughout this project.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Interactive Systems and User Experience Research Cluster of Excellence, Department of Computer Science, University of Central Florida, Orlando, FL, 32816, USA

    Andrés N. Vargas González, Eugene M. Taranta II & Joseph J. LaViola Jr.

Authors
  1. Andrés N. Vargas González
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  2. Eugene M. Taranta II
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  3. Joseph J. LaViola Jr.
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Andrés N. Vargas González .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Sketch Recognition Lab, Department of Computer Science & Engineering, Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas, USA

    Tracy Hammond

  2. Information and Knowledge Technologies, Raytheon BBN Technologies, Columbia, Massachusetts, USA

    Aaron Adler

  3. Microsoft, Redmond, Washington, USA

    Manoj Prasad

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Vargas González, A.N., Taranta, E.M., LaViola, J.J. (2017). Sketch Based Interaction Techniques for Chart Creation and Manipulation. In: Hammond, T., Adler, A., Prasad, M. (eds) Frontiers in Pen and Touch. Human–Computer Interaction Series. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-64239-0_5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-64239-0_5

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-64238-3

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-64239-0

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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