This research is about the art of sketchnoting, and was done as a collaborative project between
UCL, ETH, University of Toronto, University of Edinburgh, and Microsoft Research.
In sketchnotes, people visualize ideas by combining hand-drawn text, pictures, and diagrams
into expressive visual notes.
This enables to focus on the content, digest it through active listening, and render its
essence onto the page.
Sketchnotes are often created in real-time – such as during talks or lectures – and
can act as a tangible, often artful, summary of the most important takeaway messages.
To better understand sketchnoting practices, we collected a corpus of 103 sketchnotes and
analyzed them together with six interviews of experienced sketchnoters.
In our findings, we distilled core sketchnote components, design space, and sketchnoting
strategies.
And our analysis also inspired a list of suggestions for the design of future digital inking tools.
Sketchnotes are composed of elements in four categories: content, layout, structuring,
and styling.
The level of detail of written text ranges from full sentences, all the way to catchphrases
or key terms.
This can also include quotes and speech bubbles emphasizing important parts.
What makes sketchnotes different from traditional written notes, is the presence of graphical
content to supplement the text.
Most sketchnotes therefore contain symbols and pictograms such as objects, signs, and
shapes as annotations or to represent important concepts.
Other visual elements include drawings of people -- such as the person giving a talk,
custom illustrations of different situations, diagrams about a process or design space,
or elements to make a structure emerge and organizing content in higher level blocks.
Overall, we identified a rich design space of different types of sketchnotes.
For example, the layout and visual style of sketchnotes vary greatly.
Some sketchnotes are freeform pieces of information, others are organized as a mind map, grid structure,
or a linear format similar to comics.
Further higher-level dimensions of the design space include the level of conciseness, illustration,
personification, visual cohesion, and craftsmanship.
Through our study, we also gained insights into the strategies creators apply when drawing
their sketchnotes.
We organized those into 5 themes.
The first set of strategies is about capturing ideas, through concise text, quotes, and visuals.
We also discuss the emergence of themes and crafting of explanatory illustrations.
Second, sketchnoters use visual strategies to embellish their designs, often emphasizing
key concepts.
This is also done by conveying the same concept in multiple forms, or by contrasting the type
of content or varying style.
Third, skilled sketchnoters create a narrative by providing visual elements indicating the
flow and suggesting a reading order, or by adding a visual narrator, connecting to the
audience by depicting the character’s emotions.
Fourth, sketchnoters developed different techniques to refine the aesthetics or their sketches,
often conveying a unique visual identity making their style recognizable and memorable.
It is transcribed by the visual cohesion and composition of sketchnotes, giving them a
unique visual identity.
And you can see many of these examples in the corpus of sketchnote with our paper.
Finally, the fifth set of strategies have to do with the constraints of live drawing.
For example, people may run out of space and need to make addendum in different places.
People may revisit earlier content to finish it when there is a small break in the talk.
Overall, studying this corpus of sketchnotes – complemented through our interviews – allowed
us to uncover nuances of people’s rich practices of sketchnoting.
We see a wealth of future work in HCI to bring digital sketchnoting to a wider audience.
For example, we can envision multimodal techniques to help with capturing content and AI-driven
approaches to suggest simple icons and elements of sketches.
We can also think of many interaction techniques to help complete the drawing, moving content
around, or restyling sketches.
Digital software can support a more flexible creation process, by adding layers as in graphics
editing tools for example, enabling to dissociate content from styling.
Making digital sketchnoting tools can lower the barrier of entry.
In the future, you may produce a beautiful sketchnote with limiting drawing knowledge.
This is our goal and inspiration: Bringing sketchnotes to everyone.