Taxonomy of Data visualization in Exhibition

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Recently, cases of casual information visualization (Stasko et al., 2007) have become increasingly common in public places such as physical bookstores, museums, art galleries (Stefanie Posavec recently made a gallery of phisical installations on visualizing.org). In these situations you can find examples of digital signage installations but also physical, and since the public they serve is very heterogeneous, access to information is structured in an immersive and engaging manner, rather than an analytical and professional one.

Within this context took place our research, with the aim of exploring the different modes of interaction and storytelling used.

The investigation began with a collection of case studies (56) that met the following criteria:

- Presence of data visualization;
- Usability in a physical space.

The research made has led to a final heterogeneous collection of samples, consisting of cases of different nature ( virtual / real , interactive / static ) useful in defining an overview of the issue data visualization / exhibition although not representative of the totality of existing cases.

The analysis of the case studies for obvious reasons could not be based on the effective interaction with the installations, but through the study of the material provided by the authors (video, reports, descriptions) and retrieved from the web.

The first step of the analysis was the definition of a categorization based on existing taxonomies in this field, together with original aspects referring to these specific installations.

As a result, we have built a matrix to cross and group the selected cases in order to discover connections and relationships between the various categories, interpret recurrent patterns or highlight shortcomings.

All the results have been represented in the following visualizations.