Information Appliances and Tools in Visage

Abstract

A workspace for information analysis must support two types of analysis: routine information reporting and exploratory analysis. We have been developing a workspace called Visage to address both types of analysis tasks. Our goal is for expert users to move easily between routine tasks and exploratory data analysis as situations demand. Furthermore, recognizing the inherent complexity of data analysis, we want a system that is accessible to occasional users yet simultaneously provides power and flexibility for expert users. Ideally, such a system should support a gradual shift to increasing expertise so that occasional users of routine interfaces can perform more detailed analyses if needed. Visage addresses these needs by providing a consistent interface to a wide variety of data manipulation and visualization primitives. Plus, it lets users combine these operations to create appliances-special-purpose applications capturing multiple steps of a routine data analysis process-in a single, simple interface. Analysts thus benefit from a common set of operations and ways to integrate information across applications. Visage provides both basic tools and specialized information appliances to help them.