Synchronous data-driven storytelling with network visualizations presents significant challenges due to the complexity of real-time manipulation of network components. While existing research addresses asynchronous scenarios, there is a lack of effective tools for live presentations. To address this gap, we developed TangibleNet, a projector-based AR prototype that allows presenters to interact with node-link diagrams using double-sided magnets during live presentations. The design process was informed by interviews with professionals experienced in synchronous data storytelling and workshops with 14 HCI/VIS researchers. Insights from the interviews helped identify key design considerations for integrating physical objects as interactive tools in presentation contexts. The workshops contributed to the development of a design space mapping user actions to interaction commands for node-link diagrams. Evaluation with 12 participants confirmed that TangibleNet supports intuitive interactions and enhances presenter autonomy, demonstrating its effectiveness for synchronous network-based data storytelling.
Data collection and representation invariably involve interpretation with various layers of translation. We designed the Inner Ear—a porcelain device that both captures and represents home vibration data—to rethink the relationship between home dwellers and their data. In this paper, we report on the deployment of the Inner Ear with seven participants in Seattle, Washington, USA. We examine stills and quotes from the Inner Ear Shorts: short documentary films that capture participants’ experiences and reflections with the Inner Ear. Our findings outline nuanced relationships with data that foreground sensorial and conscious experiences to engage with objects, spaces, and infrastructure, and deemphasize legibility to give space to memory and broaden definitions of data. We discuss how more ambiguous relationships with data can be beneficial to reconfigure everyday lives with data. We conclude with a reflection on the use of documentary filmmaking as a complementary methodological approach to synthesizing and analyzing research data.
Surveys are a widespread method for collecting data at scale, but their rigid structure often limits the depth of qualitative insights obtained. While interviews naturally yield richer responses, they are challenging to conduct across diverse locations and large participant pools. To partially bridge this gap, we investigate the potential of using LLM-based chatbots to support qualitative data collection through interview probes embedded in surveys. We assess four theory-based interview probes: descriptive, idiographic, clarifying, and explanatory. Through a split-plot study design (N=64), we compare the probes' impact on response quality and user experience across three key stages of HCI research: exploration, requirements gathering, and evaluation. Our results show that probes facilitate the collection of high-quality survey data, with specific probes proving effective at different research stages. We contribute practical and methodological implications for using chatbots as research tools to enrich qualitative data collection.
Personal data flows across digital technologies integrated into people's lives and relationships. Increasingly, these technologies include Generative AI. (How) should personal data flow into and out of GenAI models? We investigate how people experience personal data collection in GenAI ecosystems and unpack the enablers and barriers to governing their data. We focus on personal data collection by Meta, specifically Instagram, in line with their recent policy update on processing user data to train GenAI models. We conducted semi-structured interviews with 20 Latin American Instagram users, based in Europe and Latin America. We discussed the acceptability of their data flowing in and out of GenAI models through different scenarios. Our results interrogate power dynamics in data collection, the (inter)personal nature of data, and the multiple unknowns concerning data and their algorithmic derivatives. We pose provocations around feelings of powerlessness, reframing (inter)personal data, and encountering unknown data and algorithms through design.
Critical thinking skills are increasingly important for comprehending our data-rich society. While museums provide data for discussion, visitors may not naturally question data in such displays due to the inherent authority of a museum. To investigate what factors can help visitors recognize bias in data, we interviewed visitors after they interacted with an augmented reality data map in an interactive data exhibition. Here, we present a qualitative analysis of fifteen semi-structured interviews with visitors who engaged with mapped data from the citizen science platform iNaturalist. The study revealed that 47% of participants were able to recognize bias, and familiarity was found to be a significant factor in this ability. We propose a three-layer framework to understand the cognitive processes of bias recognition in informal learning settings and apply this framework to our data to inform future work for designing displays to promote critical engagement with data in free-choice learning contexts.
Viewers tend to underestimate correlation in positively correlated scatterplots. However, systematically changing the size and opacity of scatterplot points can bias estimates upwards, correcting for this underestimation. Here, we examine whether the application of these visualisation techniques goes beyond a simple perceptual effect and could actually influence beliefs about information from trusted news sources. We present a fully-reproducible study in which we demonstrate that scatterplot manipulations that are able to correct for the correlation underestimation bias can also induce stronger levels of belief change compared to conventional scatterplots presenting identical data. Consequently, we show that novel visualisation techniques can be used to drive belief change, and suggest future directions for extending this work with regards to altering attitudes and behaviours.