Reduction of overhead in drawing figures with computer-detailed analyses of drawing tasks

In drawing figures using a computer assisted drawing editor, users often find it difficult to draw figures that seem to be very simple. To explain this problem, the paper first introduces an operation model that consists of two layers: concrete layer and abstract layer. The problem is that a user must deal with invisible abstract pictures, which is a combination of editor´s drawing functions. To reduce this “psychological load,” the paper proposes a new operation model in which a user can handle only concrete pictures, and introduces a new drawing editor, GIGA based on this model. In GIGA, the computer displays multiple possible candidates with considering various geometric constraints based on a picture manually sketched by the user. The user then simply selects a desirable candidate. To confirm the effectiveness of this “candidate selection method,” GIGA is evaluated and analyzed by comparing with conventional drawing editors. The analyses reveal that the psychological load is much reduced in GIGA. The drawing time with GIGA is only less than 50% of conventional drawing editors