Sketch Based Interaction Techniques for Chart Creation and Manipulation

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.