Graphical Histories for Visualization: Supporting Analysis, Communication, and Evaluation

TLDR

Interactive history tools, ranging from basic undo and redo to branching timelines of user actions, facilitate iterative forms of interaction. The paper investigates the design of history mechanisms for information visualization and presents a design study of graphical history tools for Tableau. The authors analyze architectural and interface design choices, develop Tableau graphical history tools that record and visualize interaction histories, support data analysis and communication, and provide mechanisms for presenting, managing, exporting histories and analyzing user logs. The study analyzes aggregated history sessions to evaluate Tableau usage and demonstrates tools for analyzing user history logs to uncover usage patterns.

Abstract

Interactive history tools, ranging from basic undo and redo to branching timelines of user actions, facilitate iterative forms of interaction. In this paper, we investigate the design of history mechanisms for information visualization. We present a design space analysis of both architectural and interface issues, identifying design decisions and associated trade-offs. Based on this analysis, we contribute a design study of graphical history tools for Tableau, a database visualization system. These tools record and visualize interaction histories, support data analysis and communication of findings, and contribute novel mechanisms for presenting, managing, and exporting histories. Furthermore, we have analyzed aggregated collections of history sessions to evaluate Tableau usage. We describe additional tools for analyzing users' history logs and how they have been applied to study usage patterns in Tableau.