Data Tectonics: A Framework for Building Physical and Immersive Data Representations

Abstract

The emerging research areas of physical, immersive, and situated, data representations promise to revolutionize our experience of data — moving data visualizations off the desktop and instead surfacing data into the world we inhabit, touch, and sense with our whole bodies. While full of opportunities, this shift also poses immense new challenges for visualization designers, who must now contend with the reality of creating systems that have the spatiality, materiality, and scale of real-world environments. While the visualization community has long considered the role of perception and cognition for screen- and paper-based visualizations, designers of data physicalizations and situated visualizations must now consider our perception and experience of physical environments, material properties, cultural symbolism, and spatial relationships.