Comprehensive Sketching: Exploring Infographic Design Alternatives in Parallel.
Published in Proceedings of the Extended Abstracts of the CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI EA '25), 2025
Recommended citation: Xinyu Shi, Shunan Guo, Jane Hoffswell, Gromit Yeuk-Yin Chan, Victor S. Bursztyn, Jian Zhao, and Eunyee Koh. 2025. Comprehensive Sketching: Exploring Infographic Design Alternatives in Parallel. In Proceedings of the Extended Abstracts of the CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI EA '25). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, Article 145, 1–8. https://doi.org/10.1145/3706599.3720182 https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/3706599.3720182
Designing effective and memorable infographics requires both aesthetic creativity and strategic data binding decisions, demanding intensive exploration and iterative trials and errors. Although existing sketch-based tools automate the data binding process to support rapid prototyping, they typically rely on serial workflows that limit freeform exploration. To address this, we introduce the concept of comprehensive sketching which reimagines sketches as interactive objects for expressing design intent — defining what visuals to use, how to bind data, and where to arrange elements. We implement this idea in a tool named CompSketch. CompSketch features a freeform canvas that allows designers to sketch and organize multiple disjoint ideas without assuming every stroke contributes to the final design. An on-demand preview lets users control when and how data bindings are applied, facilitating seamless transitions between exploration and refinement. CompSketch encourages the divergent thinking and empowers designers to explore infographic design alternatives in parallel.