Ride Your Data : Raise your Arms, Scream, and Experience your Data from a Roller Coaster Cart
Résumé
Traditionally, data visualisation has mostly focused on finding visual encodings most suitable for two-dimensional displays and static visual examination tasks. With the emergence of Immersive Analytics, researchers explored the use of physical navigation in 3D spaces and more embodied techniques to interact with data. Yet the sense-making process to explore them has remained more or less the same to the one used on 2D screens. In this paper, we propose to take advantages of immersive technology to propose a more subjective experience of data. We present Ride Your Data (RYD), an immersive experience in which people ride a virtual roller coasters whose shape is dictated by data, allowing them to literally ride on their data, with climbs and drops corresponding to increases and decreases in data values. After presenting the design of RYD, we present and discuss three examples of virtual roller coasters made from real datasets. We then discuss research challenges behind the design of such experiences, and more generally, data-driven immersive experiences.