Constructive Visualization to Inform the Design and Exploration of Tactile Data Representations

Reconfiguration Strategies with Composite Data Physicalizations

“…For example, the decision to place physical objects in the canvas -loading data [37] -simultaneously requires the user to think about where to put the object in relation to other data objects -visual mapping [37] and in relation to the canvas -presentation mapping [37]. Example works make use of tangible tiles [8,14,37] but also more complex token grammars such as Cairn [10] for situated data collection of a maker community, or more freeform tokens from household objects for the creation of personal physicalizations in the home [35].…”

Physecology: A Conceptual Framework to Describe Data Physicalizations in their Real-World Context

“…We excluded speculative or conceptual work with no technical realization or implementation of a physicalization system. Additionally, we included 4 relevant examples of analog physicalizations [26,34,42,100] to complete the selection, as their manual reconfiguration possibilities afforded the same degrees of input as interactive physicalizations. For a complete sample list see Table 2 1 .…”

“…inFORM [28], Datamorphose [52], Zooids [60], FizViz [90], EMERGE [97], and CoDa [102]; and analog prototypes such as Tactile Data Representations [26], and Tangible Tokens [42]. for example the coupling can be closer or further away, either within or outside the physecology.…”

“…Direct interaction occurs when physicalization changes are used as both input and output. Physicalizations that involve direct interaction are systems that, for example, allow for the manual rearrangement [26,34,42,100], or touching of the physicalization elements [28,61,97]. This interaction type is likely to occur for physecologies that use rearrangement or bottom-up motion to communicate information (Table 3).…”

“…In this case, the physicalization is the mere facilitator of interaction (if any), without any external elements within the physecology. Examples are analog physicalizations [26,34,100]; non-interactive installations or data sculptures [35,55,66]; and configurable platform systems [7,28]. This group includes physicalizations that extract data from an external source -such as an online cloud or web spaceas these distributions are spatially disrupted and not trivial for the single device or artifact to be interactive with the audience.…”