2020 – Laina: Data Physicalization of Running Activity

Laina is a shape-changing art piece, presenting physicalized running routes over a delayed period of one or two days. Over this time, some of the pins on Laina are pushed out one by one, creating a data physicalization pattern corresponding to the mapping of the last running route. The length the pins come out represent a specific effort given at that point on the route. The metric related to the effort can be chosen by the user (e.g., pace, burned calories, heart rate). Laina adopts an aesthetics perspective to spark positive feelings towards running through a slow feedback mechanism, the art piece revealing itself to the user progressively. Hence, Laina aims to trigger longer satisfaction feelings of the run and reminds the user of the positive emotions of the previous run. The shape-change interactions of Laina are twofold: indirect and direct interaction. Indirect interaction takes place when the user starts varying their running routes or their level of efforts (e.g., pace, heart rate), the user can indirectly control the shape of Laina, as this affects which of the pins come out and at what length. A direct interaction within Laina was integrated by enabling the possibility of pushing back the individual pins to the original position. If the pins are not pushed back, the different routes will stack on top of each other, showing the joint effort of previous running sessions. Once the maximum depth is reached, the pins do not actuate anymore unless they are pushed back by the user. If some of the pins are pushed back before Laina completes the art piece of the last session, the rest of the running route will still be physicalized in Laina. The direct interaction is integrated to provide autonomy to the user. Hence, the user is in charge of creating their own art-piece, erasing it entirely or keeping certain shapes they already created. Source: Daphne Menheere, Evianne van Hartingsveldt, Mads Birkebæk, Steven Vos, and Carine Lallemand. 2021. Laina: Dynamic Data Physicalization for Slow Exercising Feedback. In Designing Interactive Systems Conference 2021 (DIS’21), June 28–July 02, 2021, Virtual Event, USA. ACM, New York, NY, USA, 16 pages.