NODKANT: Exploring Constructive Network Physicalization
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Date
2025
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
The Eurographics Association and John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
Abstract
Physicalizations, which combine perceptual and sensorimotor interactions, offer an immersive way to comprehend complex data visualizations by stimulating active construction and manipulation. This study investigates the impact of personal construction on the comprehension of physicalized networks. We propose a physicalization toolkit-NODKANT-for constructing modular node-link diagrams consisting of a magnetic surface, 3D printable and stackable node labels, and edges of adjustable length. In a mixed-methods between-subject lab study with 27 participants, three groups of people used NODKANT to complete a series of low-level analysis tasks in the context of an animal contact network. The first group was tasked with freely constructing their network using a sorted edge list, the second group received step-by-step instructions to create a predefined layout, and the third group received a pre-constructed representation. While free construction proved on average more time-consuming, we show that users extract more insights from the data during construction and interact with their representation more frequently, compared to those presented with step-by-step instructions. Interestingly, the increased time demand cannot be measured in users' subjective task load. Finally, our findings indicate that participants who constructed their own representations were able to recall more detailed insights after a period of 10-14 days compared to those who were given a pre-constructed network physicalization. All materials, data, code for generating instructions, and 3D printable meshes are available on https://osf.io/tk3g5/.
Description
CCS Concepts: Human-centered computing → Visualization application domains; Empirical studies in visualization
@article{10.1111:cgf.70140,
journal = {Computer Graphics Forum},
title = {{NODKANT: Exploring Constructive Network Physicalization}},
author = {Pahr, Daniel and Bartolomeo, Sara Di and Ehlers, Henry and Filipov, Velitchko Andreev and Stoiber, Christina and Aigner, Wolfgang and Wu, Hsiang-Yun and Raidou, Renata Georgia},
year = {2025},
publisher = {The Eurographics Association and John Wiley & Sons Ltd.},
ISSN = {1467-8659},
DOI = {10.1111/cgf.70140}
}