What Students Learn With Personal Data Physicalization

I describe the results of implementing a personal data physicalization assignment in an information visualization course for senior undergraduate and graduate students in computer science and software engineering. By collecting data about themselves and representing this data in physical forms, students were able to 1) learn about data visualization, 2) design creatively, and 3) learn about themselves. While data physicalization in education has been explored with nontechnical and novice audiences, the experience I report in this article provides evidence that data physicalization also has benefits for technical, visualization-savvy students.