Constructing Visual Representations: Investigating the Use of Tangible Tokens
Open accessAbstract
The accessibility of infovis authoring tools to a wide audience has been identified as a major research challenge. A key task in the authoring process is the development of visual mappings. While the infovis community has long been deeply interested in finding effective visual mappings, comparatively little attention has been placed on how people construct visual mappings. In this paper, we present the results of a study designed to shed light on how people transform data into visual representations. We asked people to create, update and explain their own information visualizations using only tangible building blocks. We learned that all participants, most of whom had little experience in visualization authoring, were readily able to create and talk about their own visualizations. Based on our observations, we discuss participants' actions during the development of their visual representations and during their analytic activities. We conclude by suggesting implications for tool design to enable broader support for infovis authoring.
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Several recent works found that users gain more insights and clearer mental images through audio data narratives that combine textual descriptions and sonification than sonification alone.
“Several recent works found that users gain more insights and clearer mental images through audio data narratives that combine textual descriptions and sonifcation than sonifcation alone [63,106].”
From The Accessibility of Data Visualizations on the Web for Screen Reader Users: Practices and Experiences During COVID-19 (2023) · cites this paper as [63]
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Offenwanger, A., Tsandilas, T., & Chevalier, F. (2024) · IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics · doi:10.1109/tvcg.2024.3456336 · Cited by 15
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KiriPhys: Exploring New Data Physicalization Opportunities
Daneshzand, F., Périn, C., & Carpendale, S. (2022) · IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics · doi:10.1109/tvcg.2022.3209365 · Cited by 19 · see citing works
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Zhu, C., Klapwijk, R. M., Silva-Ordaz, M., Spandaw, J., & de Vries, M. (2023) · Frontiers in Education · doi:10.3389/feduc.2023.1308117 · Cited by 14 · see citing works
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Supporting Solar Energy Coordination among Communities
Panagiotidou, G., Costanza, E., Fell, M. J., Samanani, F., & Knox, H. (2023) · Proceedings of the ACM on Interactive Mobile Wearable and Ubiquitous Technologies · doi:10.1145/3596243 · Cited by 13 · see citing works
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Wun, T., Oehlberg, L., Sturdee, M., & Carpendale, S. (2018) · International Conference on Tangible, Embedded, and Embodied Interaction · doi:10.1145/3294109.3295627 · Cited by 13
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BackgroundMethodInfluentialSelf-citationPut a Label On It! Approaches for Constructing and Contextualizing Bar Chart Physicalizations
Sauvé, K., Gomez, A. R., & Houben, S. (2022) · International Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems · doi:10.1145/3491102.3501952 · Cited by 12
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Disentangling the Power Dynamics in Participatory Data Physicalisation
Cazacu, S., Panagiotidou, G., Steenberghen, T., & Moere, A. V. (2025) · CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems · doi:10.1145/3706598.3713703 · Cited by 9 · see citing works
Designing with Data: Supporting Design Processes in Physicalization Construction
Daneshzand, F., Perin, C., Grewal, N. S., Losev, T., & Carpendale, S. (2025) · International Conference on Tangible, Embedded, and Embodied Interaction · doi:10.1145/3689050.3704943 · Cited by 9
“It enables non-experts to rapidly create, edit, and explain data representations [33, 35, 76] by manually arranging collections of objects [34].”
Self-citationL'Yi, S., Chang, Y., Shin, D., & Seo, J. (2019) · Computer graphics forum (Print) · doi:10.1111/cgf.13682 · Cited by 9
“Using sketching [WHC15] or tangible building blocks [HJC14], researchers conducted exploratory studies to understand how novices transform data into visualizations.”
BackgroundWu, K., Quadri, G. J., Wang, A. Z., Osei-Tutu, D. K., Petersen, E., Koushik, V., & Szafir, D. (2024) · International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility · doi:10.1145/3663548.3675615 · Cited by 8 · see citing works
“…experiences of participants to make data more personal and approachable [4, 77], (2) encourage hands-on and construction-ist approaches [41, 43] to make abstract concepts more tangible and understandable, and (3) actively involve caregivers in the process to gain a deep and authentic…”
BackgroundConstruct and Play: Engaging Students with Visualizations through Playful Methods
Kejstová, M., Stoiber, C., Boucher, M., Kandlhofer, M., Kriglstein, S., & Aigner, W. (2023) · ACM SIGCHI Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play · doi:10.1145/3573382.3616082 · Cited by 8
“Based on the principles of a playful, hands-on approach (as depicted in Section 2), each group is given a set of materials for constructing the visualization (tangible tokens, LEGO® bricks, A2 paper canvas & pencils) [31].”
BackgroundMethodResultInfluentialJuxtaposing Controlled Empirical Studies in Visualization with Topic Developments in PsychologyPreprint
Abdul‐Rahman, A., Borgo, R., Chen, M., Edwards, D. J., & Fisher, B. (2019) · arXiv (Cornell University) · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1909.03786 · Cited by 5 · see citing works
“[102] Evaluation Context Configure Thinking, Externalizing Isenberg et al.”
BackgroundTell Me Without Telling Me: Two-Way Prediction of Visualization Literacy and Visual Attention
Chang, M., Wang, Y., Wang, H. W., Zhou, Y., Bulling, A., & Xiong, C. (2025) · IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics · doi:10.1109/tvcg.2025.3634815 · Cited by 1 · see citing works
“Baker et al. [2] and Huron et al. [39] measured the visualization literacy of participants by making them create or update the charts.”
Reciportrait: a Data Humanism Approach for Collaborative Sensemaking of Personal Data
Yan, D., Tang, C., Chandrasegaran, S. K., & Kortuem, G. (2025) · International Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems · doi:10.1145/3706598.3713300 · Cited by 7 · see citing works
PAIRcolator: Pair Collaboration for Sensemaking and Reflection on Personal Data
Yan, D., Bourgeois, J., Hsu, Y.-C., & Kortuem, G. (2025) · International Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems · doi:10.1145/3706598.3713332 · Cited by 7 · see citing works
“For instance, tangible visualization has introduced tangible data tokens that allow users to construct, organize, and manipulate blocks of data freely [34, 35], fostering more intuitive and engaging interactions with data [38].”
Newburger, E., & Elmqvist, N. (2023) · IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics · doi:10.1109/tvcg.2023.3326521 · Cited by 7 · see citing works
“Interestingly, a visual approach to statistics can help even these novice users perform advanced statistical tests [15,19,24].”
BackgroundHuron, S. (2014) · doi:10.70675/3426b009z6cebz4b27zb280zfc783910dcab · Cited by 7
Self-citationPahr, D., Ehlers, H., Wu, H.-Y., Waldner, M., & Raidou, R. (2024) · Computer graphics forum (Print) · doi:10.1111/cgf.15106 · Cited by 6 · see citing works
“Future work considering a more diverse demographic could reveal further insights into the effectiveness of educational pathophysiological process representations—also with regard to learning aspects such as constructivism, active learning, or learning-by-doing [HJC14,HHJ ∗ 17].”
BackgroundBirdbox: Exploring the User Experience of Crossmodal, Multisensory Data Representations
Dodani, A., van Koningsbruggen, R., & Hornecker, E. (2022) · International Conference on Mobile and Ubiquitous Multimedia · doi:10.1145/3568444.3568455 · Cited by 6 · see citing works
“Increasingly, research has focused on data representations that use other modalities than the visual, e.g. [16, 27, 28, 44].”
Data Tectonics: A Framework for Building Physical and Immersive Data Representations
Hull, C., & Willett, W. (2018) · IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications · doi:10.1109/mcg.2018.053491726 · Cited by 6 · see citing works
What Makes a Visualization Image Complex?
Chu, M.-D., Qiu, Z., Ling, M., Jiang, S., Laramee, R., Sedlmair, M., & Chen, J. (2025) · IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics · doi:10.1109/tvcg.2025.3633827 · Cited by 5 · see citing works
Assessing Data Visualization Literacy: Design Implementation and Analysis of a Comprehensive Test
Rodrigues, A., Barbosa, G. D. J., Lopes, H., & Barbosa, S. D. J. (2024) · Simpósio Brasileiro de Fatores Humanos em Sistemas Computacionais · doi:10.1145/3702038.3702091 · Cited by 4 · see citing works
“Others are specific to accurately assessing and representing visualization proficiency [2, 14, 31].”
Biørn-Hansen, A., Lindrup, M. V. A., Eriksson, E., Pargman, D. S., & Laaksolahti, J. (2024) · Behaviour and Information Technology · doi:10.1080/0144929x.2024.2408366 · Cited by 4 · see citing works
“Moreover, poker chips are simple tokens, yet a ff ord the assembly of complex structures of stackable chips, similar to how the constructive visualisation paradigm has been described in the literature (Huron et al. 2014; Huron, Jansen, and Carpendale 2014).”
Zhu, C., & Klapwijk, R. M. (2023) · International Conference on Interaction Design and Children · doi:10.1145/3585088.3593891 · Cited by 4 · see citing works
“The preliminary analysis of children’s artifacts and making processes revealed that children carried out visual mapping and presentation mapping [2, 19, 27] widely and frequently to assign visual and spatial properties to numerical data that was not inherently spatial.”
BackgroundMethodInfluentialPaymal, L., & Alaoui, S. (2023) · Creativity & Cognition · doi:10.1145/3591196.3593365 · Cited by 4 · see citing works
“The experimentations that emerged from these designs emphasize how the tangibility of the data representations allows users to think and reflect on problems through physically interacting with and experiencing the artifacts that represent them [20].”
From Touch to Change: Understanding Public Engagement in Data Physicalization for Social Good
Peng, Y., Wu, R., Cao, N., & Shi, Y. (2026) · CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems · doi:10.1145/3772318.3790877 · Cited by 1 · see citing works
“Also, another direction is to design adaptive or self-updating physicalizations that remain meaningful as data and audiences evolve, drawing on mechanisms such as dynamic input systems [43] or community stew-ardship [19].”
Stitching Meaning: Practices of Data Textile Creators
Purdue, S. K., Puerta, E., Bertini, E., & Tory, M. (2025) · IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics · doi:10.1109/tvcg.2025.3634255 · Cited by 3 · see citing works
Data Visualization Expert Lessons Learned: Implications for Program Evaluators
Douville, S., Targos, P. T. G., Jones, N. D., Knight, C., & Azzam, T. (2025) · American Journal of Evaluation · doi:10.1177/10982140241290744 · Cited by 3 · see citing works
“Others have investigated the process of designing visual mappings with “ non-expert ” participants (Huron et al., 2014), visual analytic roadblocks encountered by “ novice investigators ” (Kwon et al., 2011), and visualization design by domain experts who are not data visualization experts…”
Hattab, G. (2022) · 2022 IEEE Workshop on Visualization for Social Good (VIS4Good) · doi:10.1109/vis4good57762.2022.00006 · Cited by 3
“By considering simple tokens, players can grasp the constructive aspect behind each visualization [11].”
BackgroundCuscus: An End User Programming Tool for Data Visualisation
Marasoiu, M., Nauck, D., & Blackwell, A. (2019) · International Symposium on End-User Development · doi:10.1007/978-3-030-24781-2_8 · Cited by 3
ClayPhys: Towards Toolkits that Support Making Expressive Data Physicalization
Bakhtiari, B., Zhao, Y.-C., Wong, J., Tabard, A., Somanath, S., & Perin, C. (2026) · International Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems · doi:10.1145/3772318.3790871 · Cited by 2
“Existing data physicalization toolkits address this interaction challenge by proposing structures to assemble tokens (also known as the assembly model [51]).”
InfluentialEnhancing Data Visualization Literacy: A Comparative Study of Learning Materials in Schools
Boucher, M., Kejstová, M., Stoiber, C., Kandlhofer, M., Boucher, A., Kriglstein, S., Buchinger, S., & Aigner, W. (2025) · IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics · doi:10.1109/tvcg.2025.3634817 · Cited by 2 · see citing works
“Letting students interact with physical data representations [17,45,83] or playfully manipulate visualizations [47,53] could create a more immersive learning experience, bridging abstract concepts and real-world applications [48].”
Cazacu, S., Poncelet, S., Feijtraij, E., & Moere, A. V. (2025) · CHI Extended Abstracts · doi:10.1145/3706599.3720084 · Cited by 2 · see citing works
“We recognised three decoding challenges that can be explained by difficulties in visual perception.”
Summary of the Workshop on Visual Methods and Analyzing Visual Data in Human Computer Interaction
Wang, Z.-Z., Huron, S., Sturdee, M., & Carpendale, S. (2024) · ISS Companion · doi:10.1145/3696762.3698047 · Cited by 2 · see citing works
Self-citationTowards Autocomplete Strategies for Visualization Construction
Wei, W., Huron, S., & Jansen, Y. (2023) · Visual .. · doi:10.1109/vis54172.2023.00037 · Cited by 2
“To focus on interaction at the level of the visual mark [23,24], we used similar tangible tokens as previous constructive visualization studies and activities [9,30,32].”
BackgroundMethodInfluentialSelf-citationReal-time visualization reconstruction in a real-world environment using Augmented Reality.
de Araújo, T. D. O., Santos, B. S., dos Santos, C. G. R., & Meiguins, B. (2021) · International Conference on Information Visualisation · doi:10.1109/iv53921.2021.00023 · Cited by 2
“Even in non traditional environments [16] evaluation is necessary.”
BackgroundReConstructor: A Scalable Constructive Visualization Tool
Méndez, G., Walny, J., Knudsen, S., Perin, C., Huron, S., Vermeulen, J., Pusch, R., & Carpendale, M. T. (2019) · arXiv.org · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1908.00605 · Cited by 2
“Despite these advantages, the authoring process of existing constructive tools—both tangible [11, 13] and digital [17]—does not scale well to larger datasets.”
BackgroundSelf-citation
- Authors
- Huron, S., Jansen, Y., & Carpendale, S.
- Affiliations
- Institut national de recherche en sciences et technologies du numérique (FR)
- University of Copenhagen (DK)
- University of Calgary (CA)
- Venue
- IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics
- Published
- 2014-12-31
- Volume
- 20
- Issue
- 12
- Pages
- 2102-2111
- ISSN
- 1077-2626 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2028822613
- Cited by
- 141
- References
- 49
- Citations by year
- 2026: 8 · 2025: 21 · 2024: 13 · 2023: 11 · 2022: 16 · 2021: 12 · 2020: 7 · 2019: 14 · 2018: 6 · 2017: 11 · 2016: 12 · 2015: 8 · 2014: 2
- FWCI
- 9.84
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- inria.hal.science
- Locations
- IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- HAL (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- Research at the University of Copenhagen (University of Copenhagen) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- ANRT CIFRE ((2010/1534))
- AITF
- NSERC
- GRAND
- Surfnet
- SMART Technologies
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition › Data Visualization and Analytics
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Computer Graphics and Computer-Aided Design › Computer Graphics and Visualization Techniques
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Software › Spreadsheets and End-User Computing
- Keywords
- visual mapping, authoring tools
- MeSH terms
- Adult, Computer Graphics, Data Display, Female, Humans, Male, Task Performance and Analysis, Touch, Visual Perception, Informatics, Young Adult
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