Reconfiguration Strategies with Composite Data Physicalizations

Composite data physicalizations allow for the physical reconfguration of data points, creating new opportunities for interaction and engagement. However, there is a lack of understanding of people's strategies and behaviors when directly manipulating physical data objects. In this paper, we systematically characterize diferent reconfguration strategies using six exemplar physicalizations. We asked 20 participants to reorganize these exemplars with two levels of restriction: changing a single data object versus changing multiple data objects. Our fndings show that there were two main reconfguration strategies used: changes in proximity and changes in atomic orientation. We further characterize these using concrete examples of participant actions in relation to the structure of the physicalizations. We contribute an overview of reconfguration strategies, which informs the design of future manually reconfgurable and dynamic composite physicalizations.