Design implications of casual health visualization on tangible displays

This paper reports on a case study that investigated the potential of tangible displays as a means to communicate data-driven facts to lay people. We developed an interactive application that communicated health-related correlations on a set of Sifteo displays, and compared it to a traditional screen-based graphical interface conveying identical information. Our user experience and insight analysis study showed that the tangible interface allowed for more personal, reflective insights, whereas the graphical user interface was considered more efficient in time. These findings were confirmed during an in-the-wild observation study in a hospital waiting room. We therefore formulated a set of design implications for the future interaction design of casual, tangible visualizations on small screens.