Personal Physicalization
Research & Physicalization Kit Design
One of the central questions of my PhD research was, how we can foster self-reflection through personal visualizations. Supporting reflections on one’s own life is also a central goal of personal informatics systems. This project explores how constructing visualizations using only simple physical materials can support deep self-reflection.
How does constructing personal visualizations help us reflect?
For our study we designed a kit of simple physical materials and instructions. We asked participants to create their own visualizations of a topic of their choice from the provided materials. The study was conducted in participants’ homes over the course of two to four weeks. We collected diary entries and conducted semi-structured interviews. We analyzed this data using a thematic analysis approach.
In our study we found that the process of designing and constructing data representations was deeply intertwined with fundamental self-reflections. Participants reflected not only on the data, but on their personal context, their actions, and personal values. The physical nature of the representations further allowed the objects and the process to become integrated with participants’ everyday practices and environments.
The visualization construction kit
We provided our participant with simple crafting materials that everyone knows immediately how to work with and some instructions on how to turn personal experiences into data that can be visualized.
Physicalizations created with the kit.
-
![]()
Places Visited in the City
-
![]()
Dreams
-
![]()
Compliments
-
![]()
Activities in the life of a mom
-
![]()
Hip Pain
-
![]()
Workouts
Find out more…
My collaborators on this project were Uta Hinrichs, Samuel Huron and Sheelagh Carpendale. Together, we published this work at ACM CHI 2018.
We have published another paper about the paradigm of Constructive Visualization. This paradigm forms the basis of the approach we took in this project. This paper received an Honorable Mention Award at ACM DIS 2014.