Sensemaking Sans Power: Interactive Data Visualization Using Color-Changing Ink

Biswaksen Patnaik, Huaishu Peng, Niklas Elmqvist

Room: 105

2023-10-25T22:12:00ZGMT-0600Change your timezone on the schedule page
2023-10-25T22:12:00Z
Exemplar figure, described by caption below
Changing the distribution on printed media though touch without electronic computation or power. Color changing ink is used that changes it's appearance from colored (right-top) to colorless (right-bottom) upon human touch. This changes the distribution (right-top to right-bottom) upon touch.
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Keywords

Physical computing;color-changing inks;design space;data physicalization;data visualization

Abstract

We present an approach for interactively visualizing data using color-changing inks without the need for electronic displays or computers. Color-changing inks are a family of physical inks that change their color characteristics in response to an external stimulus such as heat, UV light, water, and pressure. Visualizations created using color-changing inks can embed interactivity in printed material without external computational media. In this paper, we survey current color-changing ink technology and then use these findings to derive a framework for how it can be used to construct interactive data representations. We also enumerate the interaction techniques possible using this technology. We then show some examples of how to use color-changing ink to create interactive visualizations on paper. While obviously limited in scope to situations where no power or computing is present, or as a complement to digital displays, our findings can be employed for paper, data physicalization, and embedded visualizations.