Investigating the user experience of interactive data physicalisation using constructed bar charts
David Schach, Regina Frieß, Johann Habakuk Israel · 2024
One challenge in presenting data in public areas is to engage and inspire people. Data physicalisations could be beneficial in this field. However, dynamic physicalisations are often complex and costly to produce. In this work, an interactive data physicalisation is iteratively developed with the help of users and experts. With this physicalisation, users estimate a dataset and construct a bar chart based on their guess, similar to a quiz. The device gives feedback and hints for correction by measuring the constructed bars. Previous works mainly investigated the usability of physicalisations. This work analyses how the developed physicalisation compares to an equivalent screen-based visualization regarding the user experience. In a comparative study with ten participants, the achievement of three user experience goals was investigated (user engagement, memorability, enjoyment and fun). Data physicalisation users performed significantly more interactions and consequently had higher user engagement. There was no significant difference when observing enjoyment and memorability.