John Kolojejchick

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.

An interactive visual query environment for exploring data

Direct manipulation of visualizations is a powerful technique for performing exploratory data operations such as navigation, aggregation, and filtering. Its immediacy facilitates rapid, incremental, and reversible forays into the data. However it does not provide for reuse or modification of exploration sessions. This paper describes a visual query language, VQE, that adds these capabilities to a direct manipulation exploration environment called Visage. Queries and visualizations are dynamically linked: operations on either one immediately update the other, in contrast to the feedforward sequence of database query followed by visualization of results common in traditional systems. These features are supported by the architectural concept of threads, which represent a sequence of navigation steps on particular objects. Because they are tied to particular data objects, they can be directly manipulated. Because they represent operations, they can be generalized into queries. We expect this technique to apply to direct manipulation interfaces to any objectoriented system that represents both objects and the relationships among them. NOTE: Color versions of the figures are at, e.g.,

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.

Information appliances and tools in Visage

A workspace for information analysis must support two types of analysis: routine information reporting and exploratory analysis. We have been developing a workspace called Visage to address both types of analysis tasks. Our goal is for expert users to move easily between routine tasks and exploratory data analysis as situations demand. Furthermore, recognizing the inherent complexity of data analysis, we want a system that is accessible to occasional users yet simultaneously provides power and flexibility for expert users. Ideally, such a system should support a gradual shift to increasing expertise so that occasional users of routine interfaces can perform more detailed analyses if needed. Visage addresses these needs by providing a consistent interface to a wide variety of data manipulation and visualization primitives. Plus, it lets users combine these operations to create appliances-special-purpose applications capturing multiple steps of a routine data analysis process-in a single, simple interface. Analysts thus benefit from a common set of operations and ways to integrate information across applications. Visage provides both basic tools and specialized information appliances to help them.

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.

Coordinating declarative queries with a direct manipulation data exploration environment

Interactive visualization techniques allow data exploration to be a continuous process, rather than a discrete sequence of queries and results as in traditional database systems. However limitations in expressive power of current visualization systems force users to go outside the system and form a new dataset in order to perform certain operations, such as those involving the relationship among multiple objects. Further, there is no support for integrating data from the new dataset into previous visualizations, so users must recreate them. Visages information centric paradigm provides an architectural hook for linking data across multiple queries, removing this overhead. This paper describes the addition to Visage of a visual query language, called VQE, which allows users to express more complicated queries than in previous interactive visualization systems. Visualizations can be created from queries and vice versa. When either is updated, the other changes to maintain consistency.