Critical Reflections on Visualization Authoring Systems

IEEE Transactions on Visualization & Computer Graphics (Proc. IEEE InfoVis), 2020 DOI

Abstract

An emerging generation of visualization authoring systems support expressive information visualization without textual programming. As they vary in their visualization models, system architectures, and user interfaces, it is challenging to directly compare these systems using traditional evaluative methods. Recognizing the value of contextualizing our decisions in the broader design space, we present critical reflections on three systems we developed-Lyra, Data Illustrator, and Charticulator. This paper surfaces knowledge that would have been daunting within the constituent papers of these three systems. We compare and contrast their (previously unmentioned) limitations and trade-offs between expressivity and learnability. We also reflect on common assumptions that we made during the development of our systems, thereby informing future research directions in visualization authoring systems.

Bibtex

@article{2020-critical-reflections,
  title = {{Critical Reflections on Visualization Authoring Systems}},
  author = {Arvind Satyanarayan AND Bongshin Lee AND Donghao Ren AND Jeffrey Heer AND John Stasko AND John Thompson AND Matthew Brehmer AND Zhicheng Liu},
  journal = {IEEE Transactions on Visualization \& Computer Graphics (Proc. IEEE InfoVis)},
  year = {2020},
  doi = {10.1109/TVCG.2019.2934281},
  url = {https://vis.csail.mit.edu/pubs/critical-reflections}
}
Critical Reflections on Visualization Authoring Systems

Data binding via dropzones in Lyra (left), via the binding icon in Data Illustrator (middle), and via either approach in Charticulator (right).

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