Between the Lines: A Comparative Study of Freeform-Based Knowledge-Map-Creation with Paper and Tablet

Our research question is: can digital media work as a substitute for traditional pen-and-paper, and can it enhance or support our thinking process? Affordances of paper versus digital and in particular around sketching have been largely discussed in the past. People often prefer pen and paper or whiteboards to software when it comes to the early stages of sensemaking tasks. Nowadays pen-enabled tablet-PCs are supposed to offer a sketching experience similar to pen and paper with good computation power and the ability to respond in real-time to user interactions. Therefore the question arises: how should pen-based interaction and user interfaces be designed to be more productive than pen and paper? We created a prototype tablet application called SketchViz focusing on easy restructuring of information for users and conducted a study comparing both the interactions and visual representations of 25 participants performing a given task using either pen and paper or SketchViz. The results show, that the visual representations made using the prototype were very similar to those made using pen and paper. Users especially liked the way the application allowed them to change size and position of drawn objects on the virtual canvas (which is different from current tools). They also mentioned having a better possibility to switch between detail and overview. Mainly due to technical problems, working with pen and paper was rated easier and was less time consuming. We conclude that if these problems are fixed, SketchViz will offer an interesting starting point for a digital alternative to pen and paper for the early stages of sensemaking tasks.