Fluidic Data – The User Experience of Novel Pneumatic Shape-Changing Interfaces for Dynamic Data Physicalization

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Can we represent data in other ways than just visually on a screen? Alternative forms of data representations, in particular physical data representations that can be touched and manipulated - so-called ‘physicalizations’ (analogue to ‘visualization’) - are a recent area of research which links the field of Tangible Interaction (part of human-computer interaction) with questions from Information Visualization. This project will investigate the potential of dynamic shape-changing interfaces for data representation. Research on physicalization so far is largely confined to static representations. With shape-change, we can present dynamic and live data and support interactive data exploration. To realize shape-change, we will primarily utilize fluid-based pressure systems made from textile and elastomeric sheet material, a novel option for interface generation that offers unique characteristics and lends itself to rapid prototyping. Current research in physicalization (and shape-change) only rarely addresses user experience. But data physicalization may provide benefits beyond efficiency for analytical tasks and a qualitatively different experience of data, for example, fostering empathy and increasing engagement. This is especially important for ‘casual’ InfoViz scenarios in non-professional contexts, e.g. museums or teaching, where we want people to get interested in understanding data and relate to it, but can also improve decision processes to engage deeper with the problem context or to support tacit knowledge. The project has two main strands of work that inform each other. On a constructive-engineering level, we will realize controlled fluid ‘inflatable’ shape-change and explore its novel options for shape-change and interaction. We will investigate the design space of ‘inflatables’ for data representation, document construction mechanisms and principles, technical parameters for controlling fluid shape-change, and develop functional prototypes. We utilize the knowledge gained from this to create novel data physicalization examples. We conduct an empirical investigation of the user experience of such shape-changing physicalizations regarding qualities and interpretations ascribed to a representation, of how shape change affects the sense-making process in data understanding and whether shape-change physicalization can foster empathy (associative and emotional level), and investigate intelligibility and appropriateness of mappings to data types (cognitive level),. We further investigate the impact of being able to hold and touch the representation versus just seeing it change.The novelty of our project lies in its focus on the user experience of shape change in the context of data representation and fluid-based mechanisms. The project will develop an annotated design-space framework giving a thorough overview of technical capabilities and principles and of user experience of fluidic shape-changing interfaces for data physicalization.