Joe Mattis

Data characterization for intelligent graphics presentation

An automatic presentation system is an intelligent interface component which receives information from a user or application program and designs a combination of graphics and text that effectively conveys it. It is a facility that assumes the presentation responsibilities for other programs. An important research question has been how information should be specified or described by an application program for it to be presented by an automatic presenter. This paper proposes a taxonomy of information characteristics which would need to be provided to either human or computer designers for them to create presentations reflecting the individual needs of a diverse group of users. The proposed taxonomy of characteristics defines the representational goals for intelligent interfaces which reason about graphical displays.

Interactive graphic design using automatic presentation knowledge

We present three novel tools for creating data graphics: (1) SageBrush, for assembling graphics from primitive objects like bars, lines and axes, (2) SageBook, for browsing previously created graphics relevant to current needs, and (3) SAGE, a knowledge-based presentation system that automatically designs graphics and also interprets a users specifications conveyed with the other tools. The combination of these tools supports two complementary processes in a single environment: design as a constructive process of selecting and arranging graphical elements, and design as a process of browsing and customizing previous cases. SAGE enhances userdirected design by completing partial specifications, by retrieving previously created graphics based on their appearance and data content, by creating the novel displays that users specify, and by designing alternatives when users request them. Our approach was to propose interfaces employing styles of interaction that appear to support graphic design. Knowledge-based techniques were then applied to enable the interfaces and enhance their usability.

Automating the presentation of information

The problem of creating effective computer displays of data contained in large information systems is addressed. The authors describe SAGE, an intelligent system which assumes presentation responsibilities for other systems by automatically creating graphical displays which express the results they generate. They describe SAGEs architecture and the methods by which it creates presentations. Implementing SAGE required identifying and representing a larger set of task and data characteristics than had been explored previously. The authors also describe several prototypical decision support and management systems which use SAGE in different ways to support the presentation needs of end users and system developers.<<ETX>>

SDM: selective dynamic manipulation of visualizations

In this paper we present a new set of interactive techniques for 2D and 3D visualizations. This set of techniques is called SDM (Selective Dynamic Manipulation). Selective, indicating our goal for providing a high degree of user control in selecting an object set, in selecting interactive techniques and the properties they affect, and in the degree to which a user action affects the visualization. Dynamic, indicating that the interactions all occur in real-time and that interactive animation is used to provide better contextual information to users in response to an action or operation. Manipulation, indicating the types of interactions we provide, where users can directly move objects and transform their appearance to perform different tasks. While many other approaches only provide interactive techniques in isolation, SDM supports a suite of techniques which users can combine to solve a wide variety of problems.

A Framework for Knowledge-based, Interactive Data Exploration

Abstract In this paper we propose a framework that combines the functionality of data exploration and automatic presentation systems to create a knowledge-based interactive data exploration system. The purpose of a data exploration system is to enable users to uncover and extract relationships hidden in large data sets. The purpose of an automatic presentation system is to reduce the need for users to have graphic design expertise and for them to spend a lot of time interacting with graphics packages to view their data. Previous work on data exploration was limited to query mechanisms that were often complex to learn and difficult to use, data manipulation mechanisms that did not provide complete coverage of the operations needed by users (especially the ability to form ad hoc groupings of data), and graphics that were restricted to a small set of predefined visualizations. Automatic presentation research, although addressing these issues, has been limited to the display of small data sets. Furthermore, this research has not supported interactive, user-directed processes of design and data manipulation in automatic presentation systems. We propose a framework that overcomes these limitations of current data exploration systems and integrates new interactive capabilities with automatic presentation components. This approach to supporting data exploration integrates recent work on SageTools, an environment for interactive and automatic presentation design, with a prototypical interactive data manipulation system called IDES. In this paper we present our work on the IDES data manipulation capabilities and discuss requirements for coordinating them with automatic presentation of large data sets.

Graphics and Natural Language as Components of Automatic Explanation

An important component of adaptable interactive systems is the ability to model the systems users. Previous systems have relied on user models tailored to the particular needs of that system alone. This paper presents the notion of a general user model, and describes some of our research on building a general user modelling facility that could be used by a variety of applications. This work focuses on the representation, maintenance, and acquisition issues of modelling long-term beliefs of the user, and describes a general facility for accomplishing these tasks.

Autobrief: an experimental system for the automatic generation of briefings in integrated text and information graphics

This paper describes AutoBrief. an experimental intelligent multimedia presentation system that generates presentations in text and information graphics in the domain of transportation scheduling. Acting as an intelligent assistant, AutoBrief creates a presentation to communicate its analysis of alternative schedules. In addition, the multimedia presentation facilitates data exploration through its complex information visualizations and support for direct manipulation of presentation elements. AutoBriefs research contributions include (1) a design enabling a new human-computer interaction style in which intelligent multimedia presentation objects (textual or graphic) can be used by the audience in direct manipulation operations for data exploration. (2) an application-independent approach to multimedia generation based on the representation of communicative goals suitable for both generation of text and of complex information graphics, and (3) an application-independent approach to intelligent graphic design based upon communicative goals. This retrospective overview paper, aimed at a multidisciplinary audience from the fields of human computer interaction and natural language generation, presents AutoBriefs design and design rationale.

SageTools: an intelligent environment for sketching, browsing, and customizing data-graphics

Our approach views data-graphic design as two complementary processes: design as a constructive process of selecting and arranging graphical elements, and design as a process of browsing and customizing previous cases. We present three novel tools for supporting these processes. SageBrush assembles data-graphics from primitive elements like bars, lines, and axes. SageBook browses previously created data-graphics relevant to current needs. SAGE automatically designs data-graphics, interpreting the users specifications as conveyed with the other tools. The combined environment, SageTools, enhances user-directed design by providing automatic presentation capabilities with styles of interaction that support data-graphic design.

SageBook: searching data-graphics by content

Currently, there are many hypertext-like tools and database retrieval systems that use keyword search as a means of navigation. While useful for certain tasks, keyword search is insufficient for browsing databases of data-graphics. SageBook is a system that searches among existing datagraphics, so that they can be reused with new data. In order to fulfill the needs of retrieval and reuse, it provides: 1) a direct manipulation, graphical query interface; 2) a content description language that can express important relationships for retrieving data-graphics; 3) automatic description of stored data-graphics based on their content; 4) search techniques sensitive to the structure and similarity among data-graphics; 5) manual and automatic adaptation tools for altering data-graphics so that they can be reused with new data.