Sketching & Drawing as Future Inquiry in HCI

Creating visual imagery helps us to situate ourselves within unknown worlds, processes, make connections, and find solutions. By exploring drawn ideas for novel technologies, we can examine the implications of their place in the world. Drawing, or sketching, for future inquiry in Human Computer Interaction (HCI) can be a stand-alone investigative approach, part of a wider ‘world-building’ in design fiction, or simply ideation around a concept. By examining instances of existing practice in HCI, in this paper we establish recommendations and rationales for those wishing to utilise sketching and drawing within their research. We examine approaches ranging from ideation, diagramming, scenario building, comics creation and artistic representation to create a model for sketching and drawing as future inquiry for HCI. This work also reflects on the ways in which these arts can inform and elucidate research and practice in HCI, and makes recommendations for the field, within its teaching, processes and outcomes.