Scaling data physical Association, how does scale influence experience.
This is presented by Irene Lopez Garcia and Eva Hornecker
from Bauhaus-Universität Weimar.
Data physicalization - the word is analogous to visualization - 5 00:00:17,100 --> 00:00:23 is defined as physical artefacts whose geometry or material properties encode data. 6 00:00:23 --> 00:00:28,400 Research sees various benefits: active and multimodal sensory perception
They offer natural 3D stereo vision with perfect depth of field
unlike 3D graphics on a screen or VR. They support spatial cognition,
motor memory after interacting with them, and provide affordances for interaction.
Physicalizations can be touched, handed around and the ability
to touch data has been shown to improve memory of data and to increase engagement.
..
We here show the range of work. In HCI, what's typical are - what you see in the middle
Artists, on the other hand, often create quite large data
representations of an architectural or at least over-human size dimension
On the left you see a walkable data sculpture.
Where the London crime rates tower over the audience who can walk around this map.
On the right you see a design project, where core information is only revealed
when you drop these data seeds in how they tumble down.
So you need to interact with them, and they're fairly small.
So we hear see the variety in size for physicalisation as well as
the variety of approaches between design, art and HCI - and if they are meant to be handled.
We also see that works from art and design
are not aiming to convey accurate numbers as much, but rather to raise
curiosity, provide surprise or to create an emotional connection and impact.
3D-printed versions of traditional representations, usually hand-held size.
These aspects, which I'll bracket under UX - user experience - so far
have been fairly little investigated.
In this study, we tackle the question of what the role of scale
or size is for the user experience. In particular, we wonder if a larger size
may have a larger impact in terms of a more forceful message.
Why do we even think that scale plays a role? In the arts and architecture,
scale is used intentionally as an expressive design element. And that exploits that
scale is always in relation to the observers' body.
It's a relational aspect.
For instance,
we can shrink the viewer to change their relationship to the object -
or we can we miniaturise the object to invite for more intimate inspection.
And scale is not only in relation to a viewer but also
to the environment. So this is an aspect of situatedness.
Neuropsychology tells us that sculptural and architectural objects are
perceived and understood in terms of the opportunities for action that they
provide and these opportunities change at different scale.
So what's the impact of scale for action and perception?
Many benefits of physicalization such as interaction affordances, haptic memory
of prior interaction, apply for a scale that can be physically manipulated
and rotated,
that is for hand-held sizes. Remember the data seeds.
With larger physicalisations, it's the viewer that needs to navigate around the object.
So how does this change the experience?
We created 2 designs for the same data set and built 3 different versions of each.
As data, a list of documented extinct species from Wikipedia was chosen.
The last thousand years were extracted as data and tabulated as numbers.
The timeline was segmented in decades and centuries.
The models were used in a two-part study.
First, we enlisted people in public spaces to rate models in a questionnaire.
Overall 85 participants each evaluated one of the objects.
Second, private interviews, where participants were shown all three sizes
of one design and were asked, to discuss them.
Design A is based on a fairly traditional bar chart timeline of species extinct across time,
aggregated into decades.
Each decade is represented by a white vertical thread. The gap between
the thread and the bottom of the frame represents the number of
species extinct.
This design uses the emptiness, and image of this broken 'weave'
to represent a reduction in biodiversity and its irreversible effects.
Design, B is less conventional and takes greater advantage of
the third dimension. It aggregates data in centuries, each represented by a hoop,
so each hoop is like a summary of what happened in a century.
They were hung in parallel in chronological order. Each red thread
represents one species documented as lost.
This design allows each segment to be moved and looked at individually,
but also to see the effect in a summative view from the side
as in this large picture here.
One then sees the accumulation of extinct species in blood-red.
Each design was built in three different scales, from handheld to
almost human sized.
The designs were not meant to be compared directly,
but to gain wider insights.
Design A was scaled quite faithfully. The threads on the wooden frames
worked well.
For Design B we faced construction issues that translated into
bigger differences in appearances.
The large version hoops needed to be made of plastic hoops
instead of wire for stability,
unlike the other two versions.
The relation between the thread and the hoop
was thus noticeably different across models.
The models were then set up in different sessions in public spaces,
and we enlisted participants on the spot to rate one model version
on questionnaires.
The first set of questions asked about data understanding
and engagement with the topic.
The second part contained the short AttrakDiff questionnaire,
an established UX evaluation method.
For design A,
people rated the smaller-scale the worst in both parts,
while the large version scored best.
For Design B, answers show no clear pattern. The only consistent thing
was that the large version fared worst for this design.
Nevertheless, this part of the study allowed us to see
how people understood our data physicalisations.
For example, it became clear that Design B was easier to understand than A
despite being less conventional. This made us favour it for the interviews.
We conducted 6 semi-structured interviews where participants where shown
all 3 scales of one design.
From comments, we founded the medium size versions of both design
received the most favorable responses.
This was usually related to how easy it was to perceive the model as a whole
and take in all the information.
The large version was often experienced as uncomfortable
and hard to take in.
They said things like "you cannot compare in in a whole image" or
"it's too big for my eyes".
This made it hard to investigate and compare data.
The medium size gained praise for for being more elegant and clear as well
especially for design B.
The medium size was also pointed at and looked at when participants
talked about the data itself.
Meanwhile, the smaller versions were deemed "unimpressive" or harder to
understand.
Lastly, it was clear that the differences in materials between the three
versions of Design B influenced participants responses,
which clearly constitutes a limitation of our study.
For design A, the smaller version was barely handled by participants
in contrast with Design B.
This could be due to the lack of movable pieces,
but also, it's fragile look.
One of our first insights was that if we not just 3D print something, but use crafty materials,
the material design may not that easily scale. So the details of the material
change when we scale up. And this may sometimes simply be due to the
availability of materials. But also, physical constructions will often require
changes in construction or in the material, when resized, to retain stability.
In our case, it was the hoops. And physical forces do not always behave linearly
what works in miniature may need extra trusses or needs to be made much thinner
in order to bear its own weight.
There's also visual effects of scaling. Something that looks delicate
in small size might actually end up looking overloaded and
almost brutal in a huge size.
So there is a large impact of seemingly small decisions in design.
But moreover, there is no best scale.
So, the smaller physicalizations have the advantage to enable
users to physically handle and quickly change perspective by turning
the objects around, which might also appeal to our liking for touch.
Also, participant all said they were quicker to take in and provided better overview.
Pointing, looking at something, and then refocusing on another detail
was easy with the small and medium versions. But the large versions of both designs
required far more effort and participants complained that they didn't provide good overview.
So there's something going on regarding the ability to focus on the entire object
and to focus and refocus on different details -
that is the accommodation of the eyes and moving one's head that might be required.
So there's a caveat for large-scale designs that if this is important,
they need to be easy to perceive. Large-scale on the
other hand can be more impressive and have a wow-factor.
But, it hinders taking it all in and needs more effort to navigate around
so the legibility and affordances for action are important
for user experience and are influenced by scale.
So this means, with large-scale physicalizations, scale should actually matter
and provide extra value; for instance being impressive, raising and attracting attention,
or letting viewers experience things in relation to their own body
contributing metaphorical meaning through that, influencing interpretation,
that could, for instance, engender a visceral experience
like being surrounded and walking through a sea of data items,
so you experience its endlessness and magnitude.
this is making numbers concrete by having the viewers' body and
movement in comparison.
All of that means that design and scale are not independent design decisions.
Some designs only work best in one scale and should thus
be optimized for that, e.g. to be hand-held and explored intimately.
Thus, a comparative study might not be possible.
If each scale has different qualities and design and scale need to be
matched up for the best fit.
With each, we need to think what affordances for viewing, manipulation
and navigation
does the design offer at which scale; does scale contribute
to meaning or help convey it.
So maybe our start for this study was a bit naive in comparing
different scales, but this is a finding as well and our insights can guide
future research to have a closer look
at exploiting scale more purposefully.
We suggest investigating trade-offs and design recommendations 181 00:12:01,400 --> 1193:04:50,296 regarding scale.