Scaling Data Physicalization - How Does Size Influence Experience?

Given the material nature of data physicalization, their creators need to make many design decisions, including material choices and scale. Our study explores the impact of scale in physicalization, motivated by the assumption that size can affect user experience. We created two different physicalizations (for the same dataset) in three sizes each, and evaluated the resulting six objects with a questionnaire approach and interviews. Our findings highlight that scale needs to be chosen wisely given its impact on representation legibility (ease of viewing and understanding) and affordances for interaction. We discuss factors to take into account when designing large-scale physicalizations and in further research on the potential role of scale in physicalizaton. In particular, we argue that for large-scale physicalizations, scale should matter and communicate meaning, for instance, supporting an intuitive understanding of magnitudes, or a specific experience. Thus, scale needs to be an explicit design decision, that interacts with other design parameters.