{"title":"Persist: Persistent and Reusable Interactions in Computational Notebooks","authors":"K. Gadhave, Z. Cutler, A. Lex","doi":"10.1111/cgf.15092","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div>\n \n <p>Computational notebooks, such as Jupyter, support rich data visualization. However, even when visualizations in notebooks are interactive, they are a dead end: Interactive data manipulations, such as selections, applying labels, filters, categorizations, or fixes to column or cell values, could be efficiently applied in interactive visual components, but interactive components typically cannot manipulate Python data structures. Furthermore, actions performed in interactive plots are lost as soon as the cell is re-run, prohibiting reusability and reproducibility. To remedy this problem, we introduce Persist, a family of techniques to (a) capture interaction provenance, enabling the persistence of interactions, and (b) map interactions to data manipulations that can be applied to dataframes. We implement our approach as a JupyterLab extension that supports tracking interactions in Vega-Altair plots and in a data table view. Persist can re-execute interaction provenance when a notebook or a cell is re-executed, enabling reproducibility and re-use. We evaluate Persist in a user study targeting data manipulations with 11 participants skilled in Python and Pandas, comparing it to traditional code-based approaches. Participants were consistently faster and were able to correctly complete more tasks with Persist.</p>\n </div>","PeriodicalId":10687,"journal":{"name":"Computer Graphics Forum","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.7000,"publicationDate":"2024-06-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/cgf.15092","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Computer Graphics Forum","FirstCategoryId":"94","ListUrlMain":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/cgf.15092","RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"计算机科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"COMPUTER SCIENCE, SOFTWARE ENGINEERING","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Computational notebooks, such as Jupyter, support rich data visualization. However, even when visualizations in notebooks are interactive, they are a dead end: Interactive data manipulations, such as selections, applying labels, filters, categorizations, or fixes to column or cell values, could be efficiently applied in interactive visual components, but interactive components typically cannot manipulate Python data structures. Furthermore, actions performed in interactive plots are lost as soon as the cell is re-run, prohibiting reusability and reproducibility. To remedy this problem, we introduce Persist, a family of techniques to (a) capture interaction provenance, enabling the persistence of interactions, and (b) map interactions to data manipulations that can be applied to dataframes. We implement our approach as a JupyterLab extension that supports tracking interactions in Vega-Altair plots and in a data table view. Persist can re-execute interaction provenance when a notebook or a cell is re-executed, enabling reproducibility and re-use. We evaluate Persist in a user study targeting data manipulations with 11 participants skilled in Python and Pandas, comparing it to traditional code-based approaches. Participants were consistently faster and were able to correctly complete more tasks with Persist.
期刊介绍:
Computer Graphics Forum is the official journal of Eurographics, published in cooperation with Wiley-Blackwell, and is a unique, international source of information for computer graphics professionals interested in graphics developments worldwide. It is now one of the leading journals for researchers, developers and users of computer graphics in both commercial and academic environments. The journal reports on the latest developments in the field throughout the world and covers all aspects of the theory, practice and application of computer graphics.