PRAXA: A Grammar for What-If Analysis
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arXiv
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| Autori principali: | , , , , , , , |
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| Natura: | Preprint |
| Pubblicazione: |
2025
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| _version_ | 1866911579140784128 |
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| author | Gathani, Sneha Li, Kevin Thind, Raghav Zeng, Sirui Xu, Matthew Haas, Peter J. Demiralp, Cagatay Liu, Zhicheng |
| author_facet | Gathani, Sneha Li, Kevin Thind, Raghav Zeng, Sirui Xu, Matthew Haas, Peter J. Demiralp, Cagatay Liu, Zhicheng |
| contents | What-if analysis is widely used to explore hypothetical scenarios and evaluate alternative pathways to desired results. However, current approaches are fragmented: systems implement what-if capabilities under diverse terminologies with different analytic techniques. Such fragmentation limits expressiveness, impedes flexible composition and reuse of workflows, and hinders tighter integration with AI. We present PRAXA, a compositional grammar of what-if analysis derived from recurring patterns across 141 publications in visual analytics and HCI venues. PRAXA formulates three primitives: (1) data, defining variables under analysis, (2) model, specifying predictive mechanisms, and (3) interaction operations-pairs of user actions and system responses that execute analyses. We encode PRAXA into a declarative specification language, PSL. To evaluate PRAXA, we first show expressiveness by reconstructing representative workflows from prior work as structured compositions, exposing the predominant focus on single-step rather than multi-step reasoning. Second, we demonstrate composability by revealing that capabilities described under distinct terminologies share the same grammatical structure with different parameterizations, and that new multi-step workflows emerge through composition. Third, we illustrate PSL as an intermediate representation for translating natural-language what-if queries into executable interactive interfaces, enabling inspection, validation, and more transparent AI integration. By unifying diverse what-if approaches as a grammar, PRAXA provides a foundation for analyzing, composing, and supporting workflows in next-generation what-if systems. |
| format | Preprint |
| id |
arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2510_09791 |
| institution | arXiv |
| publishDate | 2025 |
| record_format | arxiv |
| spellingShingle | PRAXA: A Grammar for What-If Analysis Gathani, Sneha Li, Kevin Thind, Raghav Zeng, Sirui Xu, Matthew Haas, Peter J. Demiralp, Cagatay Liu, Zhicheng Human-Computer Interaction What-if analysis is widely used to explore hypothetical scenarios and evaluate alternative pathways to desired results. However, current approaches are fragmented: systems implement what-if capabilities under diverse terminologies with different analytic techniques. Such fragmentation limits expressiveness, impedes flexible composition and reuse of workflows, and hinders tighter integration with AI. We present PRAXA, a compositional grammar of what-if analysis derived from recurring patterns across 141 publications in visual analytics and HCI venues. PRAXA formulates three primitives: (1) data, defining variables under analysis, (2) model, specifying predictive mechanisms, and (3) interaction operations-pairs of user actions and system responses that execute analyses. We encode PRAXA into a declarative specification language, PSL. To evaluate PRAXA, we first show expressiveness by reconstructing representative workflows from prior work as structured compositions, exposing the predominant focus on single-step rather than multi-step reasoning. Second, we demonstrate composability by revealing that capabilities described under distinct terminologies share the same grammatical structure with different parameterizations, and that new multi-step workflows emerge through composition. Third, we illustrate PSL as an intermediate representation for translating natural-language what-if queries into executable interactive interfaces, enabling inspection, validation, and more transparent AI integration. By unifying diverse what-if approaches as a grammar, PRAXA provides a foundation for analyzing, composing, and supporting workflows in next-generation what-if systems. |
| title | PRAXA: A Grammar for What-If Analysis |
| topic | Human-Computer Interaction |
| url | https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.09791 |