Physikit

Abstract

Internet of things (IoT) devices and sensor kits have the po-tential to democratize the access, use, and appropriation of data. Despite the increased availability of low cost sensors, most of the produced data is 'black box' in nature: users of-ten do not know how to access or interpret data. We propose a 'human-data design' approach in which end-users are given tools to create, share, and use data through tangible and phys-ical visualizations. This paper introduces Physikit, a system designed to allow users to explore and engage with environ-mental data through physical ambient visualizations. We re-port on the design and implementation of Physikit, and pre-sent a two-week field study which showed that participants got an increased sense of the meaning of data, embellished and appropriated the basic visualizations to make them blend into their homes, and used the visualizations as a probe for community engagement and social behavior.