From Squishing to Meaning: Exploring Data Physicalization Through Children’s Embodied Experiences

Paper Title

From Squishing to Meaning: Exploring Data Physicalization Through Children’s Embodied Experiences

Publication Info

• Topic area: Data physicalization for children using embodied interaction.
• Keywords: Data physicalization, embodied metaphors, auxetic metamaterials, tangible interfaces, child-centred design, shape-changing objects, interactive learning, personal data, HCI, developmental interaction.

Background and Problem

• Problem / challenge: There is a lack of interdisciplinary work focusing on empowering children to understand and engage with their personal data through meaningful, embodied experiences. Existing data physicalizations often impose adult-defined mappings, which may not resonate with children’s developmental stages or lived experiences.
• Significance: Enabling children to explore and interpret their personal data fosters self-discovery, learning, and emotional growth, while also promoting early data literacy.
• Motivation and related work: Prior research on tangible interfaces and embodied metaphors has shown potential for enhancing learning and engagement. However, these approaches often rely on predefined mappings, limiting interpretive flexibility. This paper addresses the gap by exploring how children can construct their own embodied metaphors through interaction with shape-changing tangibles.

Solution

• Proposed approach: The authors introduce a set of auxetic metamaterials—shape-changing objects that bend, twist, scale, and shear—to elicit children’s embodied experiences and metaphors, enabling child-centred data physicalization.
• Novelty:
  1. Development of auxetic-inspired, shape-changing tangibles as tools for eliciting embodied sense-making in children.
  2. Design and execution of a hands-on study to analyse how children interpret these tangibles through play and conversation.
  3. Presentation of illustrative sketches and prototyping concepts for child-centred data physicalization systems.
• Procedure and key techniques:
  • Fabrication of auxetic tangibles using dual-material 3D printing.
  • Conducting a study with 59 children aged 3–12, involving physical activities (e.g., hopscotch, skipping) followed by interaction with tangibles.
  • Analysis of children’s interactions to identify embodied metaphors and data mappings.

Results

• Concrete findings:
  • Children used the tangibles to express metaphors related to quantity, rhythm, resistance, and emotional states.
  • Observed behaviours included counting, grouping, rhythmic manipulation, and analogical associations (e.g., “It looks like a fish”).
  • Children expressed data concepts such as discrete (counting cells), continuous (speed, intensity), ordinal (harder/softer), and nominal (emotional labels).
• Advantage over baselines: The approach prioritizes child-centred, bottom-up meaning-making, enabling children to construct their own metaphors rather than adopting adult-imposed mappings.
• Experiments / evaluation:
  • Study conducted at Glasgow Science Centre with 59 children.
  • Activities included physical games followed by interaction with 16 auxetic tangibles.
  • Data collected through video recordings (~7 hours) and analysed using inductive coding to identify embodied metaphors.
• Limitations and future work:
  • The study focused on short-term interactions; future work could explore longitudinal effects on data literacy.
  • Automated actuation of tangibles was demonstrated but not integrated into the study; future systems could incorporate dynamic feedback.

Summary

This study introduces auxetic metamaterials as shape-changing tangibles to elicit embodied metaphors in children, enabling them to explore personal data through play and interaction. The findings reveal that children use these tangibles to express data concepts such as quantity, rhythm, resistance, and emotional states, demonstrating the potential for child-centred data physicalization. By prioritizing open-ended, child-driven meaning-making, the approach provides a foundation for designing interactive systems that align with children’s developmental and experiential contexts. Future work could expand on these insights by integrating dynamic feedback and exploring long-term impacts on data literacy.