Investigating the Manual View Specification and Visualization by Demonstration Paradigms for Visualization Construction

Abstract

Abstract Interactivity plays an important role in data visualization. Therefore, understanding how people create visualizations given different interaction paradigms provides empirical evidence to inform interaction design. We present a two-phase study comparing people's visualization construction processes using two visualization tools: one implementing the manual view specification paradigm (Polestar) and another implementing visualization by demonstration (VisExemplar). Findings of our study indicate that the choice of interaction paradigm influences the visualization construction in terms of: 1) the overall effectiveness, 2) how participants phrase their goals, and 3) their perceived control and engagement. Based on our findings, we discuss trade-offs and open challenges with these interaction paradigms.