Effects of Individual Difference on User-Sketched Layouts of Vertex-Weighted Graphs

Recent empirical works on graph drawing have analyzed users' interpretation ability with user-sketched layouts. However, user-sketched layouts have not been studied with vertex-weighted graphs. We conducted a study that was to extend the previous work to conduct an empirical study with vertex-weighted graphs. In a four-stage experiment, we analyzed characteristics of the final graph drawings, participants' drawing processes and strategies, participants' drawing preferences through questionnaires, and the differences between two groups of participants divided according to different attributes. In this paper, we report on effects of individual difference in terms of user preference, gender and prior drawing experience on user-sketched layouts of vertex-weighted graphs.