Physicalizing Sustainable Development Goals Data: An Example with SDG 7 (Affordable and Clean Energy)

In 2015, all members of the United Nations adopted the 2030 agenda for Sustainable Development (SD). Seventeen (17) goals (SDGs) were formulated towards peace and prosperity for people and the planet. However, concerns have been raised about whether these sustainable goals can be achieved by 2030. Communicating advances regarding SDGs to citizens in an effective and engaging way is thus crucial, as it can reveal which goals need more attention and prompt them to think about what to do at an individual level to support SDG progress. Physicalizations present an opportunity in this context and the overall goal of this work is to empirically articulate the merits of different strategies to convey SDG data physically. We created a data physicalization that uses vibration and temperature as modalities to convey facts related to SDG 7 (Affordable and Clean Energy). Vibration and temperature was chosen to aim for reducing the metaphorical distance between the data and the representation (i.e. to align the quality of data with quality of representation). In a preliminary evaluation, both modalities were perceived as enjoyable by the participants. The two modalities were efficient, however, vibration as a modality was more effective. Temperature, despite presenting a lower metaphorical distance, did not appear to be an effective modality to convey SDG information.