Tangible Interactions with Physicalizations of Personal Experience Data

Zann B. Anderson

1 a

and Michael D. Jones

Utah Valley University, Orem, Utah, U.S.A.

Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah, U.S.A.

Keywords:

Physicalization, Tangible Interaction, Human-computer Interaction, Personal Data.

Abstract:

Individuals record large amounts of data about their daily lives, from locations to steps to heart rate. Services

allow individuals to review and share this data. We explore physical representations—physicalizations—of

data recorded by individuals during personally meaningful trail running activities. Physical interactions may

change the way in which individuals recall and share their experiences. We present the results of two interview

studies involving physicalizations of trail running data for advanced amateur runners. Our results appear to

indicate that physicalization of personal experience data supports reﬂection and sharing, among other themes,

and that physical interaction with the object plays a central role in driving these responses.

1 INTRODUCTION

Mobile devices and wearable technology enable the

gathering of a vast amount of personal data, includ-

ing data regarding physical activity. Many individu-

als take advantage of this in order to record GPS data

for activities such as running and cycling. Platforms

such as Strava

enable individuals to record, review,

and share data from their activities, and to encourage

one another.

Given the physical nature of such activi-

ties, researchers have explored creating physi-

cal representations—physicalizing—these activities.

This includes 3D printed abstract representations of

activities as in Activity Sculptures (Stusak et al., 2014)

from Stusak et al. as well as Khot’s Sweat Atoms

(Khot, 2013). Khot has also explored other represen-

tations of physical activity such as with sports drinks

in TastyBeats (Khot et al., 2015) and with chocolate as

in EdiPulse (Khot et al., 2017). Such work physically

commemorates and further encourages the types of

daily physical activity that promote health and well-

ness.

Besides seeking to stay active and healthy, indi-

viduals often use daily physical activity to train for

more signiﬁcant and meaningful events such as races

or larger outdoor adventures. This type of physical

activity is unique in that it is planned for in advance,

https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1718-3184

http://www.strava.com

Figure 1: A tangible representation, or physicalization of a

person’s trail running route through mountainous terrain.

takes more time and effort, and is more challenging

and rewarding than a typical daily training session.

Such activities are often signiﬁcant, personally mean-

ingful experiences. Physicalization of data gathered

from these types of activities has not been explored.

The most common method of visualizing this GPS

data is a line on a map viewed on a PC, tablet, or

smartphone. This method of reviewing GPS data may

not adequately convey the physical terrain in which

the adventure occurred, an essential—perhaps even

deﬁning—facet of such activities. Existing methods

of visualization, such as shaded relief maps with topo-

graphic lines require interpretation to understand the

actual terrain context. 3D printed models (as shown

in Figure 1), on the other hand, allow the viewer to

quickly see and understand the terrain context. This

may lead more readily to reﬂection and promote shar-

ing of experiences.

Our work explores physical representations which

186

Anderson, Z. and Jones, M.

Tangible Interactions with Physicalizations of Personal Experience Data.

DOI: 10.5220/0008990201860194

In Proceedings of the 15th International Joint Conference on Computer Vision, Imaging and Computer Graphics Theory and Applications (VISIGRAPP 2020) - Volume 2: HUCAPP, pages

186-194

ISBN: 978-989-758-402-2; ISSN: 2184-4321

commemorate such experiences. Understanding the

experience of interacting with physical representa-

tions of such personally meaningful events may help

us better understand the potential and limitations of

tangible interaction with personal data in general.

As an initial foray into this area, we have con-

ducted interview studies involving physicalization of

GPS data gathered by trail runners. Trail running is

a sport in which people run on unimproved trails in

an outdoor or wilderness setting. GPS data from trail

running is a natural ﬁt for exploring physicalization of

data from exceptional personal experiences because

the topography of the route traversed provides mean-

ingful context for the GPS data, and such experiences

are often undertaken as signiﬁcant and exceptional

personal experiences.

In an exploratory semi-structured interview study,

we presented 10 “advanced amateur” (Knaving et al.,

2015) trail runners with physicalizations of their runs

and conducted interviews to understand their reaction

to and interactions with these physicalizations. In a

second interview study with 10 more advanced am-

ateur participants, we sought to understand the phe-

nomenon of sharing stories, which we encountered

frequently in the initial study, and to see whether more

stories were told with physicalizations than with pa-

per maps.

Qualitative analysis of data from these studies re-

vealed strong themes around remembrance and shar-

ing, as well as other themes, all of which appeared

largely to be driven by physical interactions with the

physicalizations. In the second study, participants

also told more stories with physicalizations than with

paper maps. Physical interactions as provided by

physicalizations may lead to increased reﬂection and

more ready sharing of personally meaningful experi-

ences.

2 RELATED WORK

2.1 Data Physicalization

A physicalization is “a physical artifact whose ge-

ometry or material properties encode data.” (Jansen

et al., 2015) An important body of existing work

in Data Physicalization explores physicalization as a

means for communicating data to a person.

Research involving physicalization in general in-

cludes exploration of the efﬁcacy of physicalizations

(Jansen et al., 2013) (Stusak et al., 2016) and work

which investigates how well people remember data

communicated using a physicalization (Stusak et al.,

2015). Taher explores interacting with data through

an actuated table which allows for physical interac-

tions with a 3D bar chart (Taher et al., 2015) (Taher

et al., 2017).

Jansen presents an overview of the ﬁeld of Data

Physicalization, outlining important concepts, related

areas, and providing direction for future work (Jansen

et al., 2015). More recently, Dragicevic et al. give

a broad overview of the area of Data Physicaliza-

tion (Dragicevic et al., 2019), including recent work,

particular applications, and enabling technologies,

among others.

2.2 Physicalization of Personal Data

Previous research on physicalization of personal data

has focused on abstract physicalizations derived from

heart rate or other activity data (Khot, 2013) (Khot

et al., 2014) (Stusak et al., 2014). A body of work by

Khot is largely focused on the physicalization of data

gathered during exercise and/or regular daily activity.

Mediums explored include plastic (Khot, 2013) (Khot

et al., 2014), liquid (Khot et al., 2015), and choco-

late (Khot et al., 2017). Much of this work explores

the emotional and social aspects of individuals’ in-

teractions with these physicalizations and the way in

which they support and encourage activity. We like-

wise begin by choosing to focus largely on emotional

and social aspects of physicalizations of personal ex-

perience data.

Swaminathan presents MakerVis (Swaminathan

et al., 2014), a tool which aids in the design and con-

struction of physicalizations.Thudt explores personal

reﬂection through the creation of hand-made physi-

calizations (Thudt et al., 2018).

Khot’s work on Fantibles (Khot et al., 2016) is

similar to ours in that the physicalizations produced

include a component which is centered around the

user—in this case, representing the user’s excitement

and social media activity during a cricket match—as

well as a component which gives context to the user’s

data, with spokes which each represent a portion of

the match and the number of wickets and during that

portion.

This work, like ours, has focused on the emotional

response produced by physicalizations of data which

is personal in nature. However, the data itself is dif-

ferent in our work, centering around one-time signif-

icant personal experiences. In contrast, the work of

Khot and Stusak largely explores the effect of physi-

calizing data from regular, day-to-day activity.

Tangible Interactions with Physicalizations of Personal Experience Data

187

2.3 Terrain Models

Physical models of terrain, often called Terrain Mod-

els (Institute of Cartography, 2018b) or Raised-relief

maps (Wikipedia, 2018), have existed in different

forms for centuries (Institute of Cartography, 2018a).

Their applications include education, urban plan-

ning, museums and visitors centers, and military use,

among others (Institute of Cartography, 2010a).

Such models have been constructed using a vari-

ety of methods, largely driven by current technology

at any given time. These include plaster models, pan-

tograph, vacuum forming, CNC routing, and others

(Institute of Cartography, 2010b). Advances in rapid

prototyping and in particular 3D printing have made

relief models for personal use more feasible. Cald-

well gives a review of related technologies and their

possibilities dating to 2001 (Caldwell, 2001), while

Rase gives a similar overview of rapid prototyping

techniques and their applications in creating solid ter-

rain models (Rase, 2011) from 2011.

Online tutorials also exist for generating .stl ﬁles

to print one’s own terrain model. Companies are be-

ginning to emerge in this space as well.

Our work builds on the history and current ad-

vances in terrain modeling and rapid prototyping,

seeking to understand their application to personal ex-

perience data from an HCI standpoint.

3 METHODS

We conducted two studies, both of which were inter-

view studies. In the ﬁrst study, we sought to gain an

initial understanding of individuals’ interactions with

and reactions to physicalizations of personal experi-

ence data from trail running. The second study was

intended to build on the ﬁrst, in particular by explor-

ing the unexpected phenomenon of storytelling en-

countered in the ﬁrst study.

Participants for both studies were recruited from

within local trail running groups as well as online

social media groups dedicated to trail running. Par-

ticipants’ backgrounds and experience varied, but all

fell into the “advanced amateur” category identiﬁed

by Knaving et al. in that they “run regularly and par-

ticipate in races” (Knaving et al., 2015).

3.1 Study A: Exploratory

In the exploratory study we created physicalizations

of trail running data and conducted interviews with 10

runners. 4 participants were female and 6 were male.

Participant trail running experience ranged from a sin-

gle race (on trail, with numerous prior road races)

to having run many many trail races of different dis-

tances and difﬁculty.

We instructed participants to select a run or race

that was personally signiﬁcant or meaningful and for

which they had GPS data, and to send us a GPX ﬁle

from that run. From the GPX ﬁles submitted, we cre-

ated and gave the physicalizations to the participants,

and conducted two interviews with each participant.

Of the ﬁles selected by participants, 5 were from

races, 4 included or were speciﬁcally focused on

mountain summit attempts, and one was from a run

that the participant had been on with their spouse

while on vacation. Participants indicated that they se-

lected the runs they did because they felt a connection

to the terrain in which the run took place or to the par-

ticular path or course they ran, or because they felt the

terrain would produce an interesting physicalization.

The ﬁrst interview was given when the participant

received their physicalization and was intended to as-

sess their initial reactions. The second was given 7

to 10 days later and was intended to assess their re-

sponse to the physicalization after a brief period of

time. A secondary goal was to determine whether any

of the initial response was due to the novelty effect

since most participants were interacting with this type

of physicalization for the ﬁrst time.

The content of the initial interview focused on the

participants’ initial thoughts and feelings, how they

felt the physicalization compared to familiar methods

of visualization, and what they intended to do with the

physicalization.

The second interview was intended to explore par-

ticipants’ impressions after interacting with the phys-

icalization over a period of time. Participants were

asked what they had done with the physicalization

since receiving it. Other questions probed what im-

pact, if any, the physicalization had over time on: par-

ticipants’ understanding of the actual terrain depicted,

their remembrance of the event in question, the shar-

ing of the experience with others, and their running in

general.

3.2 Study B: Follow-up

In the initial study, participants told many stories in

interviews, and made frequent mention of connecting

to their own memories sharing them with others. We

hypothesized that the physical nature of the physical-

izations might have something to do with their ability

to enable participants to remember.

In order to test this hypothesis we designed a study

in which we sought to compare individuals’ interac-

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188

tions with physical maps with their interactions with

physicalizations. The study had two main purposes.

First, to determine whether or not participants tell

more stories when interacting with physicalizations

of their running data compared to interacting with a

printed paper map showing the same data. Second,

to compare participants’ reactions to physicalizations

and 2D printed maps as guided by the themes iden-

tiﬁed in the ﬁrst study. We selected paper maps in

order to compare two physical conditions as opposed

to comparing a physical with an on-screen 2D or 3D

condition.

Participants were recruited in the same manner as

the ﬁrst study and were given the same instructions,

however, in this study only one interview was con-

ducted. The interview was conducted in two parts:

one focusing on the physicalization and the other on

a paper topographic map the participant was given

which was of roughly the same area as the physical-

ization and included the route. See example in Figure

During each interview we counted how many sto-

ries the participant told for each representation of the

data. At the end of the interview we told participants

that we were counting stories told.

Questions for each portion of the interview were

identical to the ﬁrst study, with the exception of the

physicalization portion also including a question ask-

ing the users how the physicalization compared to

viewing a topographic map. The choice to use iden-

tical questions for both representations of the data

avoids introducing biases based on the content of the

questions. Half of the participants were shown and

asked about the paper map ﬁrst and the other half saw

the physicalization ﬁrst.

Questions were designed to generally probe par-

ticipants’ feelings about each medium, for example

how they felt the medium portrayed and related to

their experience and whether it had any effect on their

remembrance of the experience or the physical ter-

rain in which they ran. Questions were written to ex-

plore participants’ response to each without speciﬁ-

cally prompting for stories or memories, and follow-

up questions were worded to avoid speciﬁcally asking

for stories or memories. In addition to counting sto-

ries, we also made notes about the participants’ reac-

tions to each data representation.

Maps were generated using GPS Visualizer using

data from Google Maps and printed on a color laser

printer.

4 RESULTS

Our analysis of data followed a thematic analysis ap-

proach based on the constant comparative method and

was performed by both authors. Initially we read

through all interview notes twice to become famil-

iar with the data. From these readings, we began

developing a set of descriptive (rather than in vivo)

codes to describe the data. Initial work was induc-

tive, adopting an open coding approach. Following

the constant comparative method, codes were contin-

ually compared to one another and to the data in order

to arrive at a clear and useful set of codes which de-

scribed the data.

We then performed an axial coding phase in order

to arrive at broader themes which could help to paint

an overall picture of the data. Following the constant

comparative method, codes and themes were itera-

tively compared in order to reﬁne them. We arrived

at a set of codes and themes which seemed to accu-

rately describe the phenomenon of individuals inter-

acting with physicalizations of personal trail running

data. Themes are described below.

4.1 Physical Interactions

Participants exhibited a number of different ways of

interacting with the physicalizations, including:

• Holding the physicalization in their hands

• Tracing the route

• Tracing other contours of the terrain

• Rotating the physicalization to view from differ-

ent angles

• Peering more closely at the terrain and/or route

• Holding the physicalization at a low viewing an-

gle in order to simulate a ground-level view as one

would see mountains in person

• Placing the physicalization on a ﬂat surface and

looking at it from different angles

• Attempting to match the physicalization with the

actual mountains depicted (location permitting)

Such interactions often persisted throughout the

interviews, either being relatively constant with the

participant holding the physicalizationand referring to

it, or occurring periodically throughout as the partic-

ipant set it down and picked it back up at different

points in the interview.

Participants also indicated that physical interac-

tions were common among others with whom they

shared the physicalizations. P1 said, “People seem

to love to touch it.”

Tangible Interactions with Physicalizations of Personal Experience Data

189

Physical interactions with objects is a rather obvi-

ous result in a study involving physicalization. How-

ever, it is important to relate the manner of these inter-

actions. We also note that such interactions frequently

seemed to both spark and be an integral part of each

of the other themes we relate below.

In all of the discussion about sharing the physical-

izations and the runs and terrain depicted, physical in-

teraction played a central role. Participants indicated

that they used the physicalization as a prop in order

to illustrate their discussions about their experiences

with others, and that those with whom they shared

also interacted with the physicalizations. Noticing the

physicalization on a coworker’s desk could also be

said to be a form of physical interaction at a distance.

4.2 Memory

Participants made frequent mention of remembrance

and memories during interviews. P6 stated, ”It brings

back a lot of memories.” P9 said, ”It gives a stronger

sense of memory than anything else.” In the second

interview, P2 indicated that her interactions with the

physicalization had allowed her to reﬂect more fondly

on both the run depicted and the area in which she ran,

which is near her home and in which she indicated she

had done many other runs. P3, whose physicalization

depicted a race she had run roughly two years prior to

the study, appreciated the memories that viewing the

physicalization brought back.

Mentions of remembrance typically took place

as participants were interacting with the physicaliza-

tions. Quite often this would take the form of the par-

ticipant touching the path or a part of the terrain and

then telling a brief story related to that portion of the

course or topology. Such sharing is discussed more

below.

4.3 Sharing

The most frequent manner in which memories were

manifested in our studies was participants sharing

brief stories about their runs or other experiences in

the terrain depicted. Some such recollections were

very brief, such as P9 and P6, who pointed out places

where they had become sick during their runs. Others

were somewhat more extended in duration, and re-

ﬂected on happenings, thoughts, and feelings regard-

ing the run. Such sharing of stories was frequently

augmented by physical interactions with the physi-

calizations, pointing to locations, tracing portions of

the route, or holding out the physicalization to show a

particular view.

This theme of sharing extended beyond what oc-

curred in the interviews as well. One of the primary

things that all participants indicated they wanted to

do, and that they had done, with physicalizations was

sharing them with family, friends, and coworkers.

Some of this sharing took the form of sharing the

physicalization itself, which is unsurprising given the

relatively new nature of 3D printing for participants

and their loved ones. P10 indicated that the people

he had talked to were interested in how the physical-

ization was made. This aspect of the sharing theme

would seem to indicate that novelty deﬁnitely played

a part in the experience for both participants and oth-

ers with whom they shared the physicalizations. It

seems unlikely that this could be entirely avoided

given most individuals’ relative inexperience with 3D

printing.

Other sharing involved sharing of the experience

or about the terrain depicted. P8 indicated that he was

able to use the physicalization to help his wife more

fully understand the run and terrain in which it took

place, which she had found difﬁcult in previous at-

tempts using online maps and/or physical topographic

maps.

Participants indicated sharing was both initiated

by themselves as well as by others.

When sharing with family members, the reported

level of interest and engagement varied. P8 indicated

his son, with whom he had hiked a portion of the trail

depicted, was very interested in the physicalization

and used it to share his experience with friends, which

also made his daughter jealous of her brother. In con-

trast, P5 indicated that his children “thought it was

cool,” but showed little actual interest. P10 also in-

dicated that his spouse was less than interested in the

physicalization apart from the ﬁrst time he introduced

it to her.

In similar fashion to P8’s experience with his son,

P2 said that her husband—who had been with her dur-

ing the run depicted—was very interested in the phys-

icalization. In particular, she indicated that they had

spent time going over the terrain and the course as

shown, and that it had helped him to remember por-

tions of the run he had forgotten, mentioning that he

tended to remember less than she did about runs. She

described this interaction as “bonding over plastic.”

Sharing was also initiated by people other than

the participants. This seemed to take place most of-

ten in the workplace. Participants P1, P5, P6, and

P9 indicated that they had taken their physicalizations

to display at their workplace. These participants de-

scribed interactions in which a coworker would notice

the physicalization and ask about it. This led to par-

ticipants sharing about their experiences and/or what

HUCAPP 2020 - 4th International Conference on Human Computer Interaction Theory and Applications

190

they had learned about the process of creating the

physicalization, depending on whether the participant

themselves and/or the coworker were more interested

in the experiential or the technical aspects. P9 indi-

cated that one coworker took a particular interest in

the rugged nature of the mountains depicted, having

come from a region lacking such terrain.

Other sharing took the form of displaying the

physicalization. All participants who did not take

their physicalization to work made mention of dis-

playing it somewhere in their home, usually in a place

of prominence, and speciﬁcally for some in the same

location where they display medals and other race

memorabilia. P6 and P7, who are husband and wife,

indicated different intentions for displaying. P6 said

he wished to display his “not to brag” but as a me-

mento, while his spouse said she deﬁnitely wanted to

“show off [her] accomplishment.”

4.4 Understanding Geography and

Topology

Participants said that the physicalizations aided in

their understanding of the geography or topology of

the area depicted. P4 said that the physicalization

aided her in understanding and placing landmarks she

had seen while on her run, and that when she and

her husband reviewed the physicalization together it

aided them in understanding one portion of the route

which they had found confusing during the run.

P1 said that the physicalization made understand-

ing the topology easier than topographic maps to

which he was accustomed: “It makes more sense for

my type of brain.” P6 indicated that he was also able

to better understand, and pointed out two portions of

the race course depicted in his physicalization which

were quite close geographically but separated by a

mountain ridge, a fact he had not taken note of pre-

viously.

P10 compared the physicalization to viewing the

same run on Strava and appreciated the contextual

“bird’s eye view” provided by the physicalization

while noting that it did not provide the ability to zoom

in for more detail as would an online topographic

map. P3 also felt that seeing a physical, 3D depiction

aided in contextual understanding when compared to

2D visualizations.

Participants who were more familiar with the ter-

rain depicted, in particular P1, P2, P8, and P9, rec-

ognized and pointed out familiar geological land-

marks such as peaks, ridges, and bowls. P1 said

his coworker, an avid mountain biker, did the same

when he noticed the physicalization and stopped to

talk about it. Interestingly, some of the same par-

ticipants also indicated they felt the physicalization

helped them to better understand details and overall

context for the areas depicted.

4.5 Route Discovery and Planning

Participants also described the physicalization func-

tioning as a tool for seeking out and/or planning runs

on new routes. P1 indicated that the physicalization

was a useful tool for augmenting his planning and bet-

ter understanding what to expect when contemplating

a new route.

In the second interview, P8 indicated that his in-

teractions with the physicalization had changed over

time. Initially he focused on the path itself and on the

novelty of having a tiny version of the mountain that

he could hold in his hand. He said that by the time of

the second interview, he had begun to use the physi-

calization to carefully examine features of the moun-

tain and routes which he was interested in attempting

and to share them with others. He described this type

of interaction as “exploring.”

Also in the second interview, P9 used the physical-

ization to show and describe a route that he had begun

planning in the time since the ﬁrst interview. He indi-

cated that looking at the physicalization had inspired

him to begin planning this route. Several months later,

he reported having taken a trip with friends to run this

route.

4.6 Aesthetic Appreciation

Figure 2: P1 sent this picture of the physicalization on his

work desk next to his Millennium Falcon model.

Participants exhibited an appreciation for the aesthet-

ics of the physicalizations. P1 and P4 said that it was

like a piece of art. P1 sent a picture of the physical-

ization on his desk at work, next to his model of the

Millennium Falcon from Star Wars (see Figure 2. P9

said, “I want to make a keychain out of it.”

Tangible Interactions with Physicalizations of Personal Experience Data

191

As mentioned before, each of the participants in-

dicated that they displayed their physicalization, ei-

ther at home or at work. Some in particular said they

wanted to display it with other running memorabilia,

possibly indicating as mentioned by P6 and P7 above,

that the display of the physicalization is at least in part

connected with wishing to share one’s accomplish-

ment. It also seems likely that this desire stems in part

from the novelty of 3D printed mountains, as well as

from appreciation of their aesthetic qualities.

4.7 Study 2: Map vs Physicalization

Overall, there were 41 stories told with the physical-

izations and 12 with the maps. This gives a mean of

4.1 per participant with a standard deviation of 3.07

with physicalizations, and a mean of 1.2 with a stan-

dard deviation of 1.62 with maps, an interesting set

of raw numbers but an inconclusive result statistically

speaking.

General responses to the map ranged from posi-

tive: ”I know it well” (P4-2) to ambivalent: ”Uhh...I

mean, it seems detailed...” (P6-2), to downright neg-

ative: ”It’s a piece of paper” (P3-2). Three partic-

ipants mentioned that they themselves owned better

maps that they were fond of but that this particular

map wasn’t of much interest to them.

One participant (P2-2) told more stories with the

paper map than the physicalization. This participant

stated he had a particular afﬁnity for the topographic

map of the race, saying that he had spent much time

reviewing it both prior to his running the race as well

as in the approximately two years since as he planned

to return and ﬁnish the race, having had to drop out

before.

One participant (P5-2) mentioned being color-

blind and pointed out that the physicalization is easier

to read than topographic maps which can depend on

color cues.

5 DISCUSSION

5.1 Novelty

Novelty is an important consideration in our work

given the relatively new experience it is for many peo-

ple to interact with 3D printed objects. One way to

gauge this is to consider how much of the discussion

in interviews centered around the physicalization it-

self, the creation of it, and other aspects focusing on

the physical object rather than on the experience it is

meant to commemorate.

In interviews, all participats spent time discussing

their excitement or wonder at the novelty of the phys-

icalization. Participants in the ﬁrst study also fre-

quently mentioned others having been curious or in-

terested in the creation of the physicalization during

the time between interviews.

Overall, however, this represented a small portion

of the interview time–perhaps 5%. One participant in

the ﬁrs study, however, P10, spent most of the second

interview expressing his excitement over the physi-

calization and its potential as something that others

might also be interested in.

5.2 Embedded Data

GPS data collected from trail running ﬁts into a cate-

gory of data identiﬁed by Willett (Willett et al., 2017)

which is “associated with speciﬁc locations, people,

and objects.” Willett explores the notion that such

data is well-suited to embedded representations, in

which data is displayed in the context of its physical

referent—“the physical spaces, objects, and entities

to which the data refers.” More directly, the tangible

representations used in our studies are what Willett

terms a facsimile, and due to their high level of accu-

racy in depicting the topography of the area depicted,

they “can be considered a physical referent in and of

[themselves]” into which an individual’s GPS track

can be embedded.

Among the beneﬁts and drawbacks of situated and

embedded representations of data presented by Wil-

lett, one in particular relates to a result from our stud-

ies. Willett notes that embedded physicalizations may

support collaboration in unique ways: “In particular,

physical marks could provide concrete, persistent in-

stantiations of data that support shared pointing, ma-

nipulation, and reasoning among collaborators.” Such

behaviors were indicated by our participants, particu-

larly in the experiences of P2 with her husband, and

P6 with both his wife and coworkers.

Further work may seek to explore the phe-

nomenon of shared interaction with physical repre-

sentations of personal data or of topographical and

other geographical data, in particular as it relates to

situations such as planning of trips and routes, search

and rescue, and other collaborative activities.

5.3 Limitations

Interviews were not recorded. Each interview was

conducted by a single interviewer who took notes

while conducting the interview, and made further

notes immediately or as soon as possible afterwards.

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Figure 3: An example of a physicalization and corresponding map as used in the second qualitative study. The image on the

right shows the physicalization from a low viewing angle.

This likely led to some data loss, however the data

gathered still led to interesting and valuable insights.

5.4 Future Work

Looking at the physicalizations we produced, an ob-

vious area for future work is to increase their data

density. It may be helpful to ﬁnd out how dense the

physicalization can be with data before it begins to

lose some of its ability to convey such data effectively,

and at what point it becomes less of a piece of art or

memento and more of an informative display. The ad-

dition of labels at different densities may be a way to

begin to understand this, and it would be informative

to see how adding labels changes the experience for

individuals.

Another area for exploration is technical aspects

of the physicalizations themselves. We have be-

gun exploring lighting the path, either from within

the physicalization or with light transmitted as from

underneath the physicalization (Willis et al., 2012)

(Baudisch et al., 2010) (Pereira et al., 2014). This

could be used to display data such as pace or heart

rate. We have also considered generating physical-

izations which are simply a very large bundle of light

pipes. This would allow for even greater ﬂexibility,

creating opportunities for data to be overlaid onto the

physicalization surface and changed or updated in real

time or on demand.

Finally, further exploration is warranted surround-

ing collaborative aspects of working with such phys-

ical representations. Such work might explore appli-

cation in areas such as route planning or search and

rescue. We look forward to this and other work which

builds upon and explores new avenues uncovered in

this work.

6 CONCLUSION

We have explored physicalizations of personal activ-

ity data recorded during personally meaningful trail

running experiences. Through two interview studies,

we have found that interactions with these physical-

izations leads to reﬂection on one’s experience, shar-

ing, and further consideration of the topography and

geography of the areas depicted, including planning

of new routes. Furthermore, these responses seem

largely to be driven by participants’ physical interac-

tions with the physicalizations. This work gives sup-

port to the ability of physicalizations to allow indi-

viduals to understand and connect with data. We look

forward to further work by ourselves and others in ex-

ploring physicalizations, particularly personal physi-

calizations as enabled by the growing democratization

of 3D printing technology.

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