Making sense of (big) data - visual analytics and provenance Dr Kai Xu Associate Professor in Data Analytics Middlesex University, London, UK [email protected] https://kaixu.me
Making sense of (big) data -visual analytics and provenance
Dr Kai Xu
Associate Professor in Data Analytics
Middlesex University, London, UK
[email protected] https://kaixu.me
Outline
• Introduction
• What is Sensemaking
• Supporting Sensemaking: VAST Challenge 2014
• What is (Analytic) Provenance
• Navigating Big Data: SenseMap
Outline
• Introduction
• What is Sensemaking
• Supporting Sensemaking: VAST Challenge 2014
• What is (Analytic) Provenance
• Navigating Big Data: SenseMap
Outline
• Introduction
• What is Sensemaking
• Supporting Sensemaking: VAST Challenge 2014
• What is (Analytic) Provenance
• Navigating Big Data: SenseMap
What is sensemaking?
• Making sense of data, reasoning, and make decisions
• It is something we do everyday:• Plan a holiday, buy a car, understand an illness, …• Defence, policing, investment, medical diagnosis, …
• The task is usually not well defined • Can’t run a google search or SQL query to find the
answer
• Involve many different data
• Explorative and iterative
Sensemaking example: what is the best camera for about £500?
What is the best camera for £500?
Pixel number
Sensor size
Image qualitychromatic aberration?!
Noise reduction
What does experts say?
Online reviews
What does my friend say?
Smart phone
Compact
Full frame?
Micro 4/3?
Sony RX100
Nikon D750Samsung Galaxy S7
What are the price?
How do I compare? Panasonic
LX100
Form factor
Models
Outline
• Introduction
• What is Sensemaking
• Supporting Sensemaking: VAST Challenge 2014
• What is (Analytic) Provenance
• Navigating Big Data: SenseMap
VAST Challenge 2014
• Visual Analytics Science & Technology (VAST) Challenge• Provide dataset and analysis tasks• Entry: visual analytics systems
• VAST Challenge 2014 – Mini Challenge 3• Data: tweets• Task: solve a kidnap case
Making sense of data, reasoning, and make decisions
The task is usually not well defined Can’t run a google search or SQL query to find the answer
× Involve many different data
Explorative and iterative
Our Entry
• Honourable mention: “Effective Support for Analytic Sensemaking”
• SAVI: Social Analytics Visualisation• Temporal, geo-spatial, and text analysis visualisation
• SenseMap: SenseMaking with analytic provenance• Notes and findings
• Visual reasoning
• Visual narrative construction
• Collaboration
• Analytic provenance
SAVI – Message Timeline
Nguyen, P. H., Xu, K., Walker, R., and Wong, B. W. TimeSets: Timeline visualization with set relations. Information Visualization (2016)
Discussions
• Sensemaking is not just one visualisation• Timeline, entity list, map, visual narrative, etc.
• Many aspects of the underlying data
• The visual analytics tool needs to support different types of sensemaking tasks• Help identify starting point
• Capture/record findings
• Connection between different views/data items
• Reasoning and construct narrative
Outline
• Introduction
• What is Sensemaking
• Supporting Sensemaking: VAST Challenge 2014
• What is (Analytic) Provenance
• Navigating Big Data: SenseMap
Provenance
• What is provenance?‘A record of ownership of a work of art or an antique, used as a guide to authenticity or quality’
• Data Provenance:• Data source and collection• Data processing and analysis
• This is not that new• Meta-data• Context
• Why should we care?
Who?When?Where?hoW?Why?What?Which?
The 7 ‘W’
Analytic provenance
• How users make sense of data• The data and visualisations used
• The findings
• The hypothesis and evidence
• The reasoning process and conclusions
• Example: Should we invade Iraq?• It is always easier after the event
• The actual question: was it the right decision to invade Iraq with the information and time available then.
• Can be used to support Sensemaking
Who?When?Where?hoW?Why?What?Which?
The 7 ‘W’
Outline
• Introduction
• What is Sensemaking
• Supporting Sensemaking: VAST Challenge 2014
• What is (Analytic) Provenance
• Navigating Big Data: SenseMap
Sensemaking example: what is the best camera for about £500?
What is the best camera for £500?
Pixel number
Sensor size
Image qualitychromatic aberration?!
Noise reduction
What does experts say?
Online reviews
What does my friend say?
Smart phone
Compact
Full frame?
Micro 4/3?
Sony RX100
Nikon D750Samsung Galaxy S7
What are the price?
How do I compare? Panasonic
LX100
Form factor
Models
This is usually what it looks like after one hour
• What is relevant and what is not?• Where are information about image quality?• How to compare the models?• Where did I left off two days ago?• How do I explain to my wife?
SenseMap – a map of analytic provenance• What can you do when you don’t have a map to
start with• Track where you have been
• Build the map as you go
Browser View
• Sensemaking support• highlight, take note
• set representative image in History Map
• Provenance capture• action type, timing,
context, relationship
Discussion
• SenseMap to support browser-based online sensemaking
• Capture and visualise the analytic provenance
• Support information collection and curation• Early stage of the
sensemaking process
Summary
• Sensemaking is how people understand, reason, and make decisions with data
• Analytic provenance captures the rich context of this process: seven ‘W’s
• There are still many open problems for sensemaking support
• Data visualisation tools based on analytic provenance can potentially provide a solution• SAVI (TimeSets) + SenseMap
• SenseMap2: navigating information place
• SenseMap2 is available as a Chrome extension• Just search for ‘SenseMap’ in chrome web store.
• Looking for collaboration• Research: data visualisation in general.
• Development: new tools or existing ones.
• Others: PhD, joint funding proposal, etc.
• Contact• [email protected]
• https://kaixu.me