WIZARD FOR SELECTING VISUALIZATION

• US 20100199181A1
• Filed: 02/04/2009
• Published: 08/05/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 02/04/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Morein, William Guthrie, Robertson, George G., Ruble, Brian Scott, Lee, Joshua W., Boon, Sean Michael
• Granted Patent: US 8,522,151 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 715/709
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/1423 controlling a plurality of local displays, e.g. CRT and flat panel display
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising

Abstract

A visualization design system is provided. The system includes a metadata component to describe characteristics of data. An analyzer determines attributes of a peer group, where the attributes are related to prior visualization design experiences of the group. A wizard component determines a subset of potential visualization types based in part on the characteristics of data and the attributes of the peer group.

Claims

1. A visualization design system, comprising:

a metadata component to describe characteristics of data;

an analyzer to determine attributes of a peer group, the attributes related to prior visualization design experiences; and

a wizard component to determine a subset of potential visualization types based in part on the characteristics of data and the attributes of the peer group.

2. The system of claim 1, the metadata component provides tags that indicate what type of users or peers have operated on similar types of data (or data sets) in the past, tags that indicate suitable visualization forms or subsets given a respective data type, tags that indicate a relationship between a designer and one or more other members of a peer group, or tags that represent an annotation that describes how a particular visualization was created in the past or how a particular data set was visualized.

3. The system of claim 1, the analyzer includes a data mining component or a learning component.

4. The system of claim 1, the peer group associated with local or remote databases.

5. The system of claim 1, further comprising a profile component to facilitate determining a user'"'"'s intent.

6. The system of claim 5, the profile component includes a status field, an organizational chart, a correspondence field, a learning component, a policy component, or a statistical component.

7. The system of claim 1, the wizard component further comprising an attribute processor.

8. The system of claim 1, the wizard component further comprising an intent filter.

9. The system of claim 1, the wizard component further comprising a debugging component.

10. The system of claim 1, the wizard component further comprising a collaborative analyzer.

11. The system of claim 1, the wizard component further comprising a template generator.

12. The system of claim 1, the wizard component further comprising one or more controls to facilitate visualization design.

13. The system of claim 1, the wizard component further comprising a component to determine derivations for visualizations.

14. The system of claim 1, the wizard component further comprising an annotation component to analyze prior visualizations or to allow users to add annotations to a current visualization.

15. The system of claim 1, the wizard component further comprising spreadsheet component that is mined for visualization design information.

16. A visualization design method, comprising:

analyzing peer groups, metadata, or a profile to determine knowledge data relating to a user'"'"'s design intentions;

processing the knowledge data to determine a subset of potential visualization options; and

presenting the visualization options to the user in order to select a suitable visualization format given a current data set.

17. The method of claim 16, further comprising analyzing annotations to determine design alternatives.

18. The method of claim 17, further comprising generating help assistance to aid in design of visualizations.

19. The method of claim 16, further comprising analyzing prior visualizations or data sets via data mining or learning components.

20. A visualization design system, comprising:

means for analyzing visualization information associated with one or more peer groups;

means for tagging data that relates to the potential design of a visualization; and

means for generating at least one visualization from a current data set in view of the peer groups or the tagged data.