K-Sketch: A 'kinetic' sketch pad for novice animators

• Main Authors: DAVIS, Richard C., Colwell, Brien, Landay, James A.
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 2008
• Subjects: animation; informal user interfaces; pen-based user interfaces; sketching; Software Engineering
• Online Access: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/sis_research/738; https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/context/sis_research/article/1737/viewcontent/2008_chi_rcdavis.pdf
• Institution: Singapore Management University

Because most animation tools are complex and timeconsuming to learn and use, most animations today are created by experts. To help novices create a wide range of animations quickly, we have developed a general-purpos informal, 2D animation sketching system called K-Sketch. Field studies investigating the needs of animatorsnd would-be animators helped us collect a library of usage scenarios for our tool. A novel optimization technique enabled us to design an interface that is simultaneously fast, simple, and powerful. The result is a pen-based system that relies on users’ intuitive sense of space and time while still supporting a wide range of uses. In a laboratory experiment that compared K-Sketch to a more formal animation tool (PowerPoint), participants worked three times faster, needed half the learning time, and had significantly lower cognitive load with K-Sketch.