How Domain Experts Create Conceptual Diagrams and Implications for Tool Design

Oct 26, 2026

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Conceptual diagrams enable clearer understanding of abstract relationships, support communication of complex ideas, and assist problem solving. Experts choose suitable visual representations to translate concepts into concrete shapes, yet current diagramming tools do not explicitly support this translation workflow. Based on semi-structured interviews with 18 domain experts, the study examines how participants create, adapt, and reuse representations, and analyzes barriers in moving from sketches to digital work.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryTechnology

FormatPDF

Pages14

Reading Time35 min

AccessFree to download

Introduction

Conceptual diagrams and knowledge communication

Current diagramming tools and their limitations

Research motivation and contributions

CHI 2020 Paper CHI 2020, April 25–30, 2020, Honolulu, HI, USA How Domain Experts Create Conceptual Diagrams and Implications for Tool Design Dor Ma’ayan* 1,2 Wode Ni* 2 Katherine Ye2 Chinmay Kulkarni2 Joshua Sunshine2 1Technion-Israel Institute of Technology 2 Carnegie Mellon University Haifa, Israel Pittsburgh, PA [dorma10@campus.technion.ac.il](dorma10@campus.technion.ac.il) woden, kqy, chinmayk, [sunshine@cs.cmu.edu](sunshine@cs.cmu.edu) Figure 1. Diagrams explain concepts visually in many domains, e.g.: (a) Difﬁe-Hellman key exchange with colors representing prime multiplication [82]. (b) Linking two views of the Klein 4-group [84]. (c) Unrolling a recurrent LSTM network [58]. (d) Natural numbers as 2D areas in a visual proof [28]. ABSTRACT Conceptual diagrams are used extensively to understand abstract relationships, explain complex ideas, and solve difﬁcult problems. To illustrate concepts effectively, experts ﬁnd appropriate visual representations and translate concepts into concrete shapes. This translation step is not supported explicitly by current diagramming tools. This paper investigates how domain experts create conceptual diagrams via semi-structured interviews with 18 participants from diverse backgrounds. Our participants create, adapt, and reuse visual representations using both sketches and digital tools. However, they had trouble using current diagramming tools to transition from sketches and reuse components from earlier diagrams. Our participants also expressed frustration with the slow feedback cycles and *Authors contributed equally and names are in alphabetical order. Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for proﬁt or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the ﬁrst page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior speciﬁc permission and/or a fee. Request permissions [from permissions@acm.org](from permissions@acm.org). CHI ’20, April 25–30, 2020, Honolulu, HI, USA. © 2020 Association of Computing Machinery. ACM ISBN 978-1-4503-6708-0/20/04 ...$15.00. [http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/3313831.3376253](http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/3313831.3376253) barriers to automation of their tools. Based on these results, we suggest four opportunities of diagramming tools—exploration support, representation salience, live engagement, and vocabulary correspondence—that together enable a natural diagramming experience. Finally, we discuss possibilities to leverage recent research advances to develop natural diagramming tools. Author Keywords Conceptual Diagramming; Diagram Authoring; Information Visualization INTRODUCTION Visual representations of knowledge allow us to understand and disseminate information more effectively than text alone [49] . This paper focuses on conceptual diagrams, which communicate conceptual, procedural, and metacognitive knowledge [41] in visual form. Conceptual diagrams (sometimes also called explanatory diagrams or concept visualization [1]), provide a graphical overview of conceptual models—the relationship between concrete and abstract entities [29] . By giving abstract concepts visual representations, these diagrams help explain concepts CHI 2020 Paper CHI 2020, April 25–30, 2020, Honolulu, HI, USA to oneself and communicate them with others. Explaining concepts using visuals is profoundly important for dissemination of scientiﬁc knowledge and for learning. For instance, the use of diagrams in a scientiﬁc publication positively correlates with higher scientiﬁc impact [45] . Further, creating diagrams improves learning, both when diagrams are created for others [13], and when they are created for self-explanation [

FAQs

What is the main focus of the paper?

The paper investigates how domain experts create conceptual diagrams and what this implies for designing better diagramming tools.

How did the researchers study experts’ diagram creation?

They conducted semi-structured interviews with 18 participants from diverse backgrounds.

What challenges do experts face with current diagramming tools?

Participants had difficulty transitioning from sketches to digital tools and reusing components from earlier diagrams, and they reported frustration with slow feedback cycles.

Oct 26, 2026

Upload by adawds