Testing drawing experience

Overview

Here are the things I look for when evaluating a drawing tablet's drawing experience.

Expressiveness

There are three "sensors" available to make expressive strokes that respond to what your hand is doing:

• Pressure

• Tilt

• Barrel rotation

Apps map those sensors to different brush properties to provide the feeling you want. Typical mappings include:

• Pressure to brush size or brush opacity

• Tilt to brush size, usually along one dimension, or brush rotation

• Barrel rotation to brush rotation

What I am generally looking for:

• Smooth pressure transition - Strokes move from low to high pressure without weird hiccups.

• Artifacts at low pressure - EMR pens are generally over-reactive near the IAF. This means drawing at low pressure can produce weird blobby pressure response. This is very common but also correctable with pressure smoothing or curving. See: Drawing at low physical pressure

• Pressure scan rate - A high rate means fast dots and quick strokes are not missed.

Positioning

• Pointer tracking accuracy (vertical and static) - When holding a pen still and perpendicular to the tablet surface, is the pointer directly under the pen tip?

• Tilt compensation

• Diagonal wobble

• Parallax

• Pointer lag

Resources

Teoh on Tech - About those line tests in my drawing tablet reviews 2026-06-24

This video covers:

• Which software is used and why

• Various tests, including IAF and diagonal wobble