A domain-specific language for exploratory data visualization

Abstract

With an ever-growing amount of collected data, the importance of visualization as an analysis component is growing in concert. The creation of good visualizations often doesn't happen in one step but is rather an iterative and exploratory process. However, this process is currently not well supported in most of the available visualization tools and systems. Visualization authors are forced to commit prematurely to particular design aspects of their creations, and when exploring potential variant visualizations, they are forced to adopt ad hoc techniques such as copying code snippets or keeping a collection of separate files. We propose variational visualizations as a model supporting open-ended exploration of the design space of information visualization. Together with that model, we present a prototype implementation in the form of a domain-specific language embedded in Purescript.