Interpreting data from within: supporting humandata interaction in museum exhibits through perspective taking

As data rather than physical artifacts become more commonly the product of modern scientific endeavor, we must attend to humandata interactions as people reason about and with representations of data increasingly being presented in museum settings. Complex data sets can be impenetrable for novices, so the exhibit presented here was designed to give visitors control over a personalized "slice" of the data set as an entry point for exploration. Personalized control and collaboration can often be at odds in exhibits, however. This paper presents a study of two alternate approaches to designing an embodied interaction control for the exhibit that serves both needs. The results demonstrate that interaction design can affect children's perspective taking as they interact with a Census data map museum display, and that the perspective taken by individuals is correlated with their operation of the interactive exhibit and the kinds of reasoning they employ while investigating data.