IEEE VIS 2024 Content: Design Concerns for Integrated Scripting and Interactive Visualization in Notebook Environments

Design Concerns for Integrated Scripting and Interactive Visualization in Notebook Environments

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 Ian Lumsden -

 Katy Williams -

 Jesse Bartels -

 Michela Taufer -

 Stephanie Brink -

 Abhinav Bhatele -

 Olga Pearce -

 Katherine E. Isaacs -

 DOI: 10.1109/TVCG.2024.3354561

 Room: Bayshore V

2024-10-16T18:21:00ZGMT-0600Change your timezone on the schedule page
2024-10-16T18:21:00Z

Exemplar figure, described by caption below — Our model for assigning tasks to interactive visualization or scripting modalities when designing notebook embedded visualizations. Task frequency and specificity inform preferred modalities. Highly specific tasks, such as complex queries with precise numbers can be assigned to scripting as they offered expressivity and efficiency to scripting-familiar audience over complex visual interfaces. Less-specific, more frequent tasks like finding anomalies can be assigned to visualization as they supports multiple forms of recognition and browsing. We note many tasks can be supported by both, with a hand-off as the analysis grows from more exploratory to more concrete.

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Keywords

Exploratory Data Analysis, Interactive Data Analysis, Computational Notebooks, Hybrid Visualization-Scripting, Visualization Design

Abstract

Interactive visualization can support fluid exploration but is often limited to predetermined tasks. Scripting can support a vast range of queries but may be more cumbersome for free-form exploration. Embedding interactive visualization in scripting environments, such as computational notebooks, provides an opportunity to leverage the strengths of both direct manipulation and scripting. We investigate interactive visualization design methodology, choices, and strategies under this paradigm through a design study of calling context trees used in performance analysis, a field which exemplifies typical exploratory data analysis workflows with big data and hard to define problems. We first produce a formal task analysis assigning tasks to graphical or scripting contexts based on their specificity, frequency, and suitability. We then design a notebook-embedded interactive visualization and validate it with intended users. In a follow-up study, we present participants with multiple graphical and scripting interaction modes to elicit feedback about notebook-embedded visualization design, finding consensus in support of the interaction model. We report and reflect on observations regarding the process and design implications for combining visualization and scripting in notebooks.