Utilizing Provenance as an Attribute for Visual Data Analysis: A Design Probe with ProvenanceLens

Fuente: arXiv
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Autori principali: Narechania, Arpit, Guo, Shunan, Koh, Eunyee, Endert, Alex, Hoffswell, Jane
Natura: Preprint
Pubblicazione: 2025
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author Narechania, Arpit
Guo, Shunan
Koh, Eunyee
Endert, Alex
Hoffswell, Jane
author_facet Narechania, Arpit
Guo, Shunan
Koh, Eunyee
Endert, Alex
Hoffswell, Jane
contents Analytic provenance can be visually encoded to help users track their ongoing analysis trajectories, recall past interactions, and inform new analytic directions. Despite its significance, provenance is often hardwired into analytics systems, affording limited user control and opportunities for self-reflection. We thus propose modeling provenance as an attribute that is available to users during analysis. We demonstrate this concept by modeling two provenance attributes that track the recency and frequency of user interactions with data. We integrate these attributes into a visual data analysis system prototype, ProvenanceLens, wherein users can visualize their interaction recency and frequency by mapping them to encoding channels (e.g., color, size) or applying data transformations (e.g., filter, sort). Using ProvenanceLens as a design probe, we conduct an exploratory study with sixteen users to investigate how these provenance-tracking affordances are utilized for both decision-making and self-reflection. We find that users can accurately and confidently answer questions about their analysis, and we show that mismatches between the user's mental model and the provenance encodings can be surprising, thereby prompting useful self-reflection. We also report on the user strategies surrounding these affordances, and reflect on their intuitiveness and effectiveness in representing provenance.
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id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2505_11784
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Utilizing Provenance as an Attribute for Visual Data Analysis: A Design Probe with ProvenanceLens
Narechania, Arpit
Guo, Shunan
Koh, Eunyee
Endert, Alex
Hoffswell, Jane
Human-Computer Interaction
Analytic provenance can be visually encoded to help users track their ongoing analysis trajectories, recall past interactions, and inform new analytic directions. Despite its significance, provenance is often hardwired into analytics systems, affording limited user control and opportunities for self-reflection. We thus propose modeling provenance as an attribute that is available to users during analysis. We demonstrate this concept by modeling two provenance attributes that track the recency and frequency of user interactions with data. We integrate these attributes into a visual data analysis system prototype, ProvenanceLens, wherein users can visualize their interaction recency and frequency by mapping them to encoding channels (e.g., color, size) or applying data transformations (e.g., filter, sort). Using ProvenanceLens as a design probe, we conduct an exploratory study with sixteen users to investigate how these provenance-tracking affordances are utilized for both decision-making and self-reflection. We find that users can accurately and confidently answer questions about their analysis, and we show that mismatches between the user's mental model and the provenance encodings can be surprising, thereby prompting useful self-reflection. We also report on the user strategies surrounding these affordances, and reflect on their intuitiveness and effectiveness in representing provenance.
title Utilizing Provenance as an Attribute for Visual Data Analysis: A Design Probe with ProvenanceLens
topic Human-Computer Interaction
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2505.11784