Exploring Intuitive Methods for Creating Euler and Spider Diagrams

Abstract

The main objective of this project was to develop a software tool that supports intuitive methods for generating Euler and Spider diagrams. Euler and Spider diagrams are well-known diagrammatic notations used to illustrate the relationships between sets. A natural method for creating such diagrams is by using a pen. However, most tools for generating Euler diagrams use textual descriptions as input. Consequently, it is not easy to create or edit the diagrams. Moreover, there are very few tools to generate Spider diagrams. A software tool that supports non-textual input is needed to provide a convenient way of creating these diagrams in electronic form. The software must be able to understand the semantics of the diagram so that it can support other intelligent functionalities such as editing. This project focuses on extending a software tool called SketchSet to explore different ways of creating and editing Euler and Spider diagrams. An analysis of the existing tools for generating Euler diagrams shows the following: 1. if input is a textual description of the diagram, the resulting diagram is not easily readable; 2. if input is widget shapes or sketching, only SketchSet which this project extends, is able to compute the diagram semantics. We use a more intuitive approach to provide a better tool for Euler and Spider diagrams. There are two synchronous views in SketchSet. Users are able to draw and write in sketch view just as if using pen and paper, and are also able to add shapes in formal view with traditional point-and-click operations. Moreover, the semantics carried by the diagrams are computed for both views. If there are semantic differences between the two views, they are automatically rectified. To assess the usability of SketchSet, a usability evaluation was conducted. Several refinements were applied to the software following feedback from participants. The refinements had the desired effect: users had fewer problems with these functions and no other major issues were identified.