Remote Sketching

The world of meetings and lectures was turned on its head during the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent lockdowns by various world governments. Rather than nipping along to your colleague’s office to ask a quick question, chat functions have become the norm, with organisations using digital suites to connect people. Online meetings spread from a rare event during the week to full days in front of the screen, which also meant online teaching. So how did this impact the delivery of creative, hands-on courses, such as sketching? And given the new ‘hybrid’ world we live in, how can we utilise these changes to maintain the impact of sketching in human-computer interaction (HCI)? We live in a world where sketching can now transcend continents, so how do we work together on sketching activities when we aren’t even in the same room? This chapter focuses on the best practice and advice for sharing and carrying out remote sketching sessions with colleagues, team members, students, and research participants. We describe useful resources and tools (e.g. online whiteboards and 3D environments) and how sketching directly in digital media combines with hand-drawn sketches and uploading.