Physicalising CO₂ data

Abstract

Climate change is one of the most pressing global challenges we face. However, its complexity renders its communication difficult. There remain gaps between scientists, journalists and the public to generate understanding and engagement. This thesis explores an alternative medium of communication to address these gaps: data physicalisation. This emerging field of research explores how physically encoded data offers novel ways to interact with information.

This study explores the opportunities and limitations of using data physicalisation to communicate on climate topics to the general public. The research focuses on a data physicalisation, “The Carbon Box”, and the topic of national carbon emissions. By inviting 21 participants to exploratory workshops, a qualitative approach gathers insights on the relationships between them and the physicalisation.

Through a thematic analysis and inductive coding three main themes are drawn out: engagement and accessibility, information literacy and emotional resonance.

The findings highlight diverse opportunities for data physicalisations. They can create strong engagement between an individual and an abstract topic by its designed intents and through unique decoding experiences. By allowing for varying degrees of interpretation towards the data, physicalisations could play as boundary objects to foster discussions between the multi-disciplinary nature of these topics. Moreover, the Carbon Box brings about a balance of emotional responses which can offer opportunities to mitigate common negative feelings. Nevertheless, these alternative systems face limitations whether in their interpretive clarity or in the ability for physical encoding to translate complex data.

This thesis calls for further interdisciplinary research as the field of data physicalisation holds strong potential in allowing our climate crisis to be better understood and acted upon.