User-Driven Support for Visualization Prototyping in D3
User-Driven Support for Visualization Prototyping in D3
Loading...
Files
Publication or External Link
Date
2023-03
Authors
Bako, Hannah K.
Varma, Alisha
Faboro, Anuoluwapo
Haider, Mahreen
Nerrise, Favour
Kenah, Bissaka
Dickerson, John P.
Battle, Leilani
Advisor
Citation
Hannah K. Bako, Alisha Varma, Anuoluwapo Faboro, Mahreen Haider, Favour Nerrise, Bissaka Kenah, John P. Dickerson, and Leilani Battle. 2023. User-Driven Support for Visualization Prototyping in D3. In 28th International Conference on Intelligent User Interfaces (IUI ’23), March 27– 31, 2023, Sydney, NSW, Australia. ACM, New York, NY, USA, 15 pages.
Abstract
Templates have emerged as an effective approach to simplifying the
visualization design and programming process. For example, they
enable users to quickly generate multiple visualization designs even
when using complex toolkits like D3. However, these templates are
often treated as rigid artifacts that respond poorly to changes made
outside of the template’s established parameters, limiting user creativity. Preserving the user’s creative flow requires a more dynamic
approach to template-based visualization design, where tools can
respond gracefully to users’ edits when they modify templates in
unexpected ways. In this paper, we leverage the structural similarities revealed by templates to design resilient support features
for prototyping D3 visualizations: recommendations to suggest
complementary interactions for a users’ D3 program; and code
augmentation to implement recommended interactions with a
single click, even when users deviate from pre-defined templates.
We demonstrate the utility of these features in Mirny, a designfocused prototyping environment for D3. In a user study with 20
D3 users, we find that these automated features enable participants
to prototype their design ideas with significantly fewer programming iterations. We also characterize key modification strategies
used by participants to customize D3 templates. Informed by our
findings and participants’ feedback, we discuss the key implications
of the use of templates for interleaving visualization programming
and design.