We present Vega-Lite, a high-level grammar that enables rapid specification of interactive data visualizations. Vega-Lite combines a traditional grammar of graphics, providing visual encoding rules and a composition algebra for layered and multi-view displays, with a novel grammar of interaction. Users specify interactive semantics by composing selections. In Vega-Lite, a selection is an abstraction that defines input event processing, points of interest, and a predicate function for inclusion testing. Selections parameterize visual encodings by serving as input data, defining scale extents, or by driving conditional logic. The Vega-Lite compiler automatically synthesizes requisite data flow and event handling logic, which users can override for further customization. In contrast to existing reactive specifications, Vega-Lite selections decompose an interaction design into concise, enumerable semantic units. We evaluate Vega-Lite through a range of examples, demonstrating succinct specification of both customized interaction methods and common techniques such as panning, zooming, and linked selection.

General visualization tools typically require manual specification of views: analysts must select data variables and then choose which transformations and visual encodings to apply. These decisions often involve both domain and visualization design expertise, and may impose a tedious specification process that impedes exploration. In this paper, we seek to complement manual chart construction with interactive navigation of a gallery of automatically-generated visualizations. We contribute Voyager, a mixed-initiative system that supports faceted browsing of recommended charts chosen according to statistical and perceptual measures. We describe Voyager's architecture, motivating design principles, and methods for generating and interacting with visualization recommendations. In a study comparing Voyager to a manual visualization specification tool, we find that Voyager facilitates exploration of previously unseen data and leads to increased data variable coverage. We then distill design implications for visualization tools, in particular the need to balance rapid exploration and targeted question-answering.

We present a design study of the TensorFlow Graph Visualizer, part of the TensorFlow machine intelligence platform. This tool helps users understand complex machine learning architectures by visualizing their underlying dataflow graphs. The tool works by applying a series of graph transformations that enable standard layout techniques to produce a legible interactive diagram. To declutter the graph, we decouple non-critical nodes from the layout. To provide an overview, we build a clustered graph using the hierarchical structure annotated in the source code. To support exploration of nested structure on demand, we perform edge bundling to enable stable and responsive cluster expansion. Finally, we detect and highlight repeated structures to emphasize a model's modular composition. To demonstrate the utility of the visualizer, we describe example usage scenarios and report user feedback. Overall, users find the visualizer useful for understanding, debugging, and sharing the structures of their models.

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Declarative visualization grammars can accelerate development, facilitate retargeting across platforms, and allow language-level optimizations. However, existing declarative visualization languages are primarily concerned with visual encoding, and rely on imperative event handlers for interactive behaviors. In response, we introduce a model of declarative interaction design for data visualizations. Adopting methods from reactive programming, we model low-level events as composable data streams from which we form higher-level semantic signals. Signals feed predicates and scale inversions, which allow us to generalize interactive selections at the level of item geometry (pixels) into interactive queries over the data domain. Production rules then use these queries to manipulate the visualization's appearance. To facilitate reuse and sharing, these constructs can be encapsulated as named interactors: standalone, purely declarative specifications of interaction techniques. We assess our model's feasibility and expressivity by instantiating it with extensions to the Vega visualization grammar. Through a diverse range of examples, we demonstrate coverage over an established taxonomy of visualization interaction techniques.