Using a Tangible Versus a Multi-touch Graphical User Interface to Support Data Exploration at a Museum Exhibit

Abstract

We describe a study comparing the behavior of museum visitors at an interactive exhibit that used physical versus virtual objects to explore a large scientific dataset. The exhibit visualized the distribution of phytoplankton in the world's oceans on a multi-touch table. In one version, visitors used physical rings to look at the type and proportion of phytoplankton in different areas of the oceans, and in the other version they used virtual rings. The findings suggest that the physical rings better afforded touching and manipulations, which were prerequisites to further exploration, and attracted more groups, thereby providing opportunities for people to talk and share. However, the comparison did not detect any measurable differences in the thoroughness of visitors' interactions, the questions they asked, or on-topic talk with others at the exhibit. These results should help museum professionals and interaction designers better weigh the costs and benefits of tangible user interfaces.

Embodied Engagement with Narrative: A Design Framework for Presenting Cultural Heritage Artifacts

“…For example, in the story of Cinderella 2000, snapping together the image of Cinderella's evil stepmother's face with the image of her house would play the audio clip of Cinderella's step mother yelling at Cinderella. An example of a similar interactive system in a museum exhibit is an installation in the Exploratorium in San Francisco that allows visitors to explore phytoplankton populations in the world's oceans [24]. The installation consists of a physical ring that functions as a digital magnifying glass placed on top of an interactive multi-touch tabletop.…”

BacPack

“…Ma et al [14] compared tangible and graphical versions of an exhibit and found that while the tangible version attracted more visitors, there was not necessarily a difference in the visitors' experience with the exhibit. However, their exhibit utilized only three tangibles that needed to be shared among visitors.…”

Comparing Tangible and Multi-touch Interaction for Interactive Data Visualization Tasks

“…One example is a museum exhibit that enables users to explore the distribution of oceanic phytoplankton using ring objects and a 55-inch custom-built table. Compared to a multi-touch interface, the tangible exhibit improved affordance, which attracted groups and invited further exploration [14]. Another example is G-nome surfer, which is a multi-touch tabletop interface that uses tangible objects as containers for generelated information.…”

“…TEI '16, February 14-17, 2016 analysis [17] to access data, perform calculations, adjust parameters and manipulate windows. Most systems only support mouse and keyboard interaction, although some post-WIMP (Windows, Icons, Menu, Point) setups use projections onto walls and tabletops [11,14,18,20,21]. This paper outlines the design of a tabletop TUI for interactive data visualization, and it makes two main contributions.…”