Huang, Zeyuan, Gao, Cangjun, Shan, Yaxian, Hu, Haoxiang, Li, Qingkun, Deng, Xiaoming, Ma, Cuixia, Lai, Yukun ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2094-5680, Liu, Yong-Jin, Tian, Feng, Dai, Guozhong and Wang, Hongan
2025.
SketchGPT: A sketch-based multimodal interface for application-agnostic LLM interaction.
Presented at: UIST '25: The 38th Annual ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology,
Busan, Republic of Korea,
28 September - 1 October, 2025.
Published in: Bianchi, Andrea, Glassman, Elena, Mackay, Wendy E., Zhao, Shengdong, Kim, Jeeeun and Oakley, Ian eds.
UIST '25: Proceedings of the 38th Annual ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology.
New York, NY:
Association for Computing Machinery,
10.1145/3746059.3747598
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Abstract
Human interaction with large language models (LLMs) is typically confined to text or image interfaces. Sketches offer a powerful medium for articulating creative ideas and user intentions, yet their potential remains underexplored. We propose SketchGPT, a novel interaction paradigm that integrates sketch and speech input directly over the system interface, facilitating open-ended, context-aware communication with LLMs. By leveraging the complementary strengths of multimodal inputs, expressions are enriched with semantic scope while maintaining efficiency. Interpreting user intentions across diverse contexts and modalities remains a key challenge. To address this, we developed a prototype based on a multi-agent framework that infers user intentions within context and generates executable context-sensitive and toolkit-aware feedback. Using Chain-of-Thought techniques for temporal and semantic alignment, the system understands multimodal intentions and performs operations following human-in-the-loop confirmation to ensure reliability. User studies demonstrate that SketchGPT significantly outperforms unimodal manipulation approaches, offering more intuitive and effective means to interact with LLMs.
| Item Type: | Conference or Workshop Item (Paper) |
|---|---|
| Date Type: | Published Online |
| Status: | Published |
| Schools: | Schools > Computer Science & Informatics |
| Publisher: | Association for Computing Machinery |
| ISBN: | 9798400720376 |
| Date of First Compliant Deposit: | 27 September 2025 |
| Date of Acceptance: | 24 July 2025 |
| Last Modified: | 30 Sep 2025 15:00 |
| URI: | https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/181362 |
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