Data Clothing and BigBarChart: designing physical data reports on indoor pollutants for individuals and communities

Laura J. Perovich, Phoebe Cai, Amber Guo, Kristin Zimmerman, Katherine Paseman, Dayanna Espinoza Silva, Julia G. Brody

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View presentation:2021-10-27T16:15:00ZGMT-0600Change your timezone on the schedule page
2021-10-27T16:15:00Z
Exemplar figure, described by caption below
We develop and test three data physicalizations--Dressed in Data, Data Shirts, and BigBarChart--for sharing results with participants in environmental health studies. Dressed in Data, above, takes an artist approach to displaying levels of environmental pollutants using a textile lace pattern. This project surfaces opportunities for researchers to understand how data physicalization may be useful to environmental health applications and to learn how diverse communities perceive these emerging approaches in information design.
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Direct link to video on YouTube: https://youtu.be/ryuald1z828

Abstract

In response to participant preferences and new ethics guidelines, researchers are increasingly sharing data with health study participants, including data on their own household chemical exposures. Data physicalization may be a useful tool for these communications, because it is thought to be accessible to a general audience and emotionally engaged. However, there are limited studies of data physicalization in the wild with diverse communities. Our application of this method in the Green Housing Study is an early example of using data physicalization in environmental health report-back. We gathered feedback through community meetings, prototype testing, and semistructured interviews, leading to the development of data t-shirts and other garments and person-sized bar charts. We found that participants were enthusiastic about data physicalizations, it connected them to their previous experience, and they had varying desires to share their data. Our findings suggest that researchers can enhance environmental communications by further developing the human experience of physicalizations and engaging diverse communities.