Buckaroo: A Direct Manipulation Visual Data Wrangler

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Warner, Annabelle, McNutt, Andrew, Rosen, Paul, Rezig, El Kindi
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Warner, Annabelle
McNutt, Andrew
Rosen, Paul
Rezig, El Kindi
author_facet Warner, Annabelle
McNutt, Andrew
Rosen, Paul
Rezig, El Kindi
contents Preparing datasets -- a critical phase known as data wrangling -- constitutes the dominant phase of data science development, consuming upwards of 80% of the total project time. This phase encompasses a myriad of tasks: parsing data, restructuring it for analysis, repairing inaccuracies, merging sources, eliminating duplicates, and ensuring overall data integrity. Traditional approaches, typically through manual coding in languages such as Python or using spreadsheets, are not only laborious but also error-prone. These issues range from missing entries and formatting inconsistencies to data type inaccuracies, all of which can affect the quality of downstream tasks if not properly corrected. To address these challenges, we present Buckaroo, a visualization system to highlight discrepancies in data and enable on-the-spot corrections through direct manipulations of visual objects. Buckaroo (1) automatically finds "interesting" data groups that exhibit anomalies compared to the rest of the groups and recommends them for inspection; (2) suggests wrangling actions that the user can choose to repair the anomalies; and (3) allows users to visually manipulate their data by displaying the effects of their wrangling actions and offering the ability to undo or redo these actions, which supports the iterative nature of data wrangling. A video companion is available at https://youtu.be/iXdCYbvpQVE
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2507_16073
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Buckaroo: A Direct Manipulation Visual Data Wrangler
Warner, Annabelle
McNutt, Andrew
Rosen, Paul
Rezig, El Kindi
Human-Computer Interaction
Databases
Preparing datasets -- a critical phase known as data wrangling -- constitutes the dominant phase of data science development, consuming upwards of 80% of the total project time. This phase encompasses a myriad of tasks: parsing data, restructuring it for analysis, repairing inaccuracies, merging sources, eliminating duplicates, and ensuring overall data integrity. Traditional approaches, typically through manual coding in languages such as Python or using spreadsheets, are not only laborious but also error-prone. These issues range from missing entries and formatting inconsistencies to data type inaccuracies, all of which can affect the quality of downstream tasks if not properly corrected. To address these challenges, we present Buckaroo, a visualization system to highlight discrepancies in data and enable on-the-spot corrections through direct manipulations of visual objects. Buckaroo (1) automatically finds "interesting" data groups that exhibit anomalies compared to the rest of the groups and recommends them for inspection; (2) suggests wrangling actions that the user can choose to repair the anomalies; and (3) allows users to visually manipulate their data by displaying the effects of their wrangling actions and offering the ability to undo or redo these actions, which supports the iterative nature of data wrangling. A video companion is available at https://youtu.be/iXdCYbvpQVE
title Buckaroo: A Direct Manipulation Visual Data Wrangler
topic Human-Computer Interaction
Databases
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.16073