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\u2014Lyra, 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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":0,"template":"","meta":{"msr-url-field":"","msr-podcast-episode":"","msrModifiedDate":"","msrModifiedDateEnabled":false,"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"_classifai_error":"","footnotes":""},"msr-content-type":[3],"msr-research-highlight":[],"research-area":[13563,13554],"msr-publication-type":[193715],"msr-product-type":[],"msr-focus-area":[],"msr-platform":[],"msr-download-source":[],"msr-locale":[268875],"msr-post-option":[],"msr-field-of-study":[],"msr-conference":[],"msr-journal":[],"msr-impact-theme":[],"msr-pillar":[],"class_list":["post-637584","msr-research-item","type-msr-research-item","status-publish","hentry","msr-research-area-data-platform-analytics","msr-research-area-human-computer-interaction","msr-locale-en_us"],"msr_publishername":"","msr_edition":"","msr_affiliation":"","msr_published_date":"2020-1-1","msr_host":"","msr_duration":"","msr_version":"","msr_speaker":"","msr_other_contributors":"","msr_booktitle":"","msr_pages_string":"","msr_chapter":"","msr_isbn":"","msr_journal":"IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics","msr_volume":"","msr_number":"","msr_editors":"","msr_series":"","msr_issue":"","msr_organization":"","msr_how_published":"","msr_notes":"","msr_highlight_text":"","msr_release_tracker_id":"","msr_original_fields_of_study":"","msr_download_urls":"","msr_external_url":"","msr_secondary_video_url":"","msr_longbiography":"","msr_microsoftintellectualproperty":1,"msr_main_download":"","msr_publicationurl":"","msr_doi":"","msr_publication_uploader":[{"type":"file","viewUrl":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/CriticalReflections-InfoVis2019.pdf","id":"637587","title":"criticalreflections-infovis2019","label_id":"243109","label":0}],"msr_related_uploader":"","msr_attachments":[{"id":637587,"url":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/CriticalReflections-InfoVis2019.pdf"}],"msr-author-ordering":[{"type":"text","value":"Arvind Satyanarayan","user_id":0,"rest_url":false},{"type":"user_nicename","value":"Bongshin Lee","user_id":31276,"rest_url":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/microsoft-research\/v1\/researchers?person=Bongshin Lee"},{"type":"text","value":"Donghao Ren","user_id":0,"rest_url":false},{"type":"text","value":"Jeffrey Heer","user_id":0,"rest_url":false},{"type":"text","value":"John Stasko","user_id":0,"rest_url":false},{"type":"user_nicename","value":"John Thompson","user_id":40765,"rest_url":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/microsoft-research\/v1\/researchers?person=John Thompson"},{"type":"text","value":"Matthew Brehmer","user_id":0,"rest_url":false},{"type":"text","value":"Zhicheng Liu","user_id":0,"rest_url":false}],"msr_impact_theme":[],"msr_research_lab":[199565],"msr_event":[],"msr_group":[371909,379814],"msr_project":[365414],"publication":[],"video":[],"download":[],"msr_publication_type":"article","related_content":{"projects":[{"ID":365414,"post_title":"Data-Driven Storytelling","post_name":"data-driven-storytelling","post_type":"msr-project","post_date":"2017-02-22 09:33:17","post_modified":"2022-05-30 10:49:49","post_status":"publish","permalink":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/project\/data-driven-storytelling\/","post_excerpt":"Practitioners increasingly use visualizations \u201cin the wild\u201d to tell compelling stories supported by data, and continually develop novel techniques that help integrate data visualization into narrative stories. The visualization research community has recently begun to pay more attention to the need and use of visualization as a storytelling medium to tell engaging visual data-driven stories.\u00a0 In addition to understanding the data story creation process and the techniques used in successful data stories, we explore ways…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-project\/365414"}]}}]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-research-item\/637584","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-research-item"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/msr-research-item"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-research-item\/637584\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":637590,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-research-item\/637584\/revisions\/637590"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=637584"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"msr-content-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-content-type?post=637584"},{"taxonomy":"msr-research-highlight","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-research-highlight?post=637584"},{"taxonomy":"msr-research-area","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/research-area?post=637584"},{"taxonomy":"msr-publication-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-publication-type?post=637584"},{"taxonomy":"msr-product-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-product-type?post=637584"},{"taxonomy":"msr-focus-area","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-focus-area?post=637584"},{"taxonomy":"msr-platform","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-platform?post=637584"},{"taxonomy":"msr-download-source","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-download-source?post=637584"},{"taxonomy":"msr-locale","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-locale?post=637584"},{"taxonomy":"msr-post-option","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-post-option?post=637584"},{"taxonomy":"msr-field-of-study","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-field-of-study?post=637584"},{"taxonomy":"msr-conference","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-conference?post=637584"},{"taxonomy":"msr-journal","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-journal?post=637584"},{"taxonomy":"msr-impact-theme","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-impact-theme?post=637584"},{"taxonomy":"msr-pillar","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-pillar?post=637584"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}