# Case Study LUT 2022
*CHI ’22 Extended Abstracts, April 29–May 05, 2022, New Orleans, LA, USA © 2022 Copyright held by the owner/author(s). ACM ISBN 978-1-4503-9156-6/22/04.
https://doi.org/10.1145/3491101.3503561*
*Authors: Md Tanvir Hasan, Annika Wolff, Antti Knutas, Anne Pässilä, Lasse Kantola*

*Wiki article abbreviated by:* S M Tahsinur Rahman, Taiwo Bamigbala. LUT University.

**Finnish Lake Data Curation Using Data Comic**

In this case study, the authors explored how data comic which is an already existing data-driven story telling method can be used to improve sense-making of data within a co-design process. They are aware that not everyone has the competence to interprete raw data and that learning data skills during co-design processes is almost impossible since the process is usually time-bound. In order to solve the challenges involved in upskilling and data manipulation during design process, they used data comic technique to curate data by converting the comic panels into a card game so that it can be used interactively and collaboratively in a co-design situation.

Students who are mostly teenagers from diverse backgrounds were invited to a workshop. The students were led through the process of engaging with curated data to make sense of water pollution in a selected Finnish lake since the 1970s and raise awareness towards environmental pollution. The workshop was based on the concept of art-based method called data drama where a mythological character who supposedly came from the future asked for the assistance of the participants in explaining what happened to the Finnish lake in the past based on the knowledge the participants have derived while engaging with the card games. The aim of the workshop is to determine whether data comic makes learning process easier and also investigate the usefulness of card games in understanding the co-design process.

> Image by Md Tanvir Hasan

The workshop participants were divided into groups based on a matchmaking game process. Afterwards card games that have been designed based on the concept of data comics were administered to participants in each of the group. The participants were asked to play the game and afterwards the workshop facilitator engages the participants in discussion based on the content of the games they have played. A mythological character thereafter asked questions from the participants and the participants provide answers by making sketches based on history of the lake which they have learnt from the card games. At the end of the workshop, surveys were administered on both the participants and facilitators in order to understand how the data comic and card games affected participants output.
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> Participants interacting during the workshop

The results and lessons learnt from the case study indicate that;
* Data comic is an interesting and easy way of data visualization
* An expert is needed to first curate the data into comic formats for easy sense-making
* Card games improve interaction and encourages active participation in co-design process
* Combination of art-based method with card games helps participants to understand data quickly and support collaborative aspect of data sense-making
* Art-based method framing is capable of turning participants from passive recipient of data into data communicators
* Data comic in co-design is capable of making participants relate their learnings to a real-life context
* Data comic is very effective in conveying information for collaborative ideation in co-design scenarios where participants are neither data nor domain experts but less effective and unnecessary where many are already data experts

Read more information about the [Data Comic](https://hackmd.io/1mFQG4rWS8qbC2EqazlswQ) method abbreviated from the LUT Case Study.

**References**
Aristeidou, M., Scanlon, E. and Sharples, M. (2017) ‘Profles of engagement in on-line communities of citizen science participation’, Computers in Human Behavior, 74, pp. 246–256. doi: 10.1016/j.chb.2017.04.044.

B, E. E., Vogel, S. and Fran, N. C. (2021) ‘Tales from the Materialverse: Comic-Based Narratives and Character Cut-Outs for Co-Design Fiction’, 1, pp. 302–311. doi: 10.1007/978-3-030-85616-8.

Bach, B. et al. (2017) ‘The Emerging Genre of Data Comics’, IEEE computer graphics and applications, 37(3), pp. 6–13. doi: 10.1109/MCG.2017.33.

Wang, Z., Bach, B. and Dingwall, H. (2019) ‘Teaching data visualization and story-telling with data comic workshops’, Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems -Proceedings, pp. 1–9. doi: 10.1145/3290607.3299043.

###### tags: `art-based methods guide` `book` `context`