Exploring the Design Space of Situated Analytics

Augmented reality (AR) is a novel computer-based medium which is able to present data visualizations everywhere around a user. This enables situated analytics (SitA), that is, sensemaking work that involves physical objects around the user. Unlike desktop-based visualization, it remains largely unclear how to properly leverage the physical context in SitA scenarios. This project will build a SitA prototype and use it to investigate iimportant research questions such as if/how analytic work can be interleaved with physical activities, how users prefer to arrange their visualizations near or around referents, and how to make the visualizations respond to changes in the environment. A final research question concerns situated authoring. Rather than letting users analyze data using a finite set of visual representations and interactions, users are encouraged to create novel content embedded in their physical environment.