The Gamma

Programmatic data exploration
for non-programmers

Tomas Petricek, Charles University, Prague
tomas@tomasp.net | @tomaspetricek | http://tomasp.net

Motivation

Tools for open data-driven journalism


Simplicity and learnability without experts

Transparency through openness

Knowledge transfer across data sources



Demo

Exploring Olympic medals in The Gamma

Iterative prompting

Code completion as non-expert programming mechanism


Single interaction to construct code

Valid and complete mechanism

Works with many type providers



Demo

Exploring the World Bank data cube

Data cube provider

Multi-dimensional data cube slicing


Graph data provider

Finding connections in graph databases

Evaluation

Data exploration for non-programmers


Can you create interesting analyses?
Yes! See case studies in the paper

Can non-programmers use the tool?
Yes! See the user study in the paper



The Gamma

What is new? Yes, it is that simple!

Design space of data exploration tools

Code completion as coding mechanism

Iterative prompting interaction principle



Tomas Petricek, Charles University, Prague
tomas@tomasp.net | @tomaspetricek | http://tomasp.net