Beautifying Sketching-based Design Tool Content: Issues and Experiences

With the advent of the Tablet PC and stylus-based PDAs, sketching-based user interfaces for design tools have become popular. However, a major challenge with such interfaces is the need for appropriate “beautification” of the sketches. This includes both interactive beautification as content is sketched and post-design conversion of sketches to formalised, computer-drawn diagrams. We discuss a number of beautification issues and requirements for sketching-based design tools, illustrating these with examples from two quite different sketchingbased applications. We illustrate ways of supporting beautification, user interface design and implementation challenges, and results from preliminary evaluations of such interfaces.