Blocks: Creating Rich Tables with Drag-and-Drop Interaction

Anonymous

Keywords: Formalism, level of detail, nesting, layout, conditional formatting, rich tables, direct manipulation

Abstract: We present Blocks, a formalism that enables the building of visualizations by specifying layout, data relationships, and level of detail (LOD) for specific portions of the visualization. Users can create and manipulate Blocks on a canvas interface through drag-and-drop interaction, controlling the LOD of the data attributes for tabular style visualizations. We conducted a user study to compare how 24 participants employ Blocks and Tableau in their analytical workflows to complete a target visualization task. We also ran a subsequent longitudinal diary study with eight participants to better understand both the usability and utility of Blocks in their own analytical inquiries. Findings from the study suggest that Blocks is a useful mechanism for creating visualizations with embedded microcharts, conditional formatting, and custom layouts. We finally describe how the Blocks formalism can be extended to support additional composite visualizations and Sankey charts, along with future implications for designing visual analysis interfaces that can handle creating more complex charts through drag-and-drop interaction