Rising Stars: Towards Democratizing Data Interfaces
Abstract: Interactive data interfaces (e.g., visualizations,dashboards) are critical in nearly every stage of data management. I believe interactive data interfaces, rather than traditional programming, will be the primary method to empower the next billion data users, and have the potential to be as ubiquitous as web pages and mobile applications are today. However, the number and effectiveness of today’s data interfaces are a mere fraction of what’s possible. The primary reason is that current tools do not address the unique challenges of designing data interfaces and ensuring that they are scalable and highly responsive. Consequently, even interfaces with basic functionality require vast amounts of resources and expertise to build.
My talk will focus on three projects aimed at democratizing data interfaces. I propose a Data Interface Grammar (DIG) to represent interface analysis, which is analyzable and corresponds with
interfaces. Using DIG, Precision Interface 2(PI2) is the first system to automatically generate fully interactive interfaces from analyses. Finally, I will discuss the Physical Visualization Design (PVD)
system, which automatically optimizes the backend to ensure interactive responsiveness.
Bio: Yiru Chen is a PhD candidate at Columbia University in the Computer Science Department, advised by Professor Eugene Wu. Her research goal is to help people at all technical levels to make sense of their data quickly. In particular, Yiru studies how to automatically generate interactive data interfaces from users' analysis queries and optimize the interface backend to guarantee responsiveness. Before her PhD, she earned her Bachelor's degree in Computer Science and Economics from Peking University in 2018. She was a research intern at Microsoft Research. She was the recipient of Google PhD fellowship 2021 and has been invited to participate in EECS Rising Stars Workshop 2023.
A pizza lunch for attendees will be available at 12:00 p.m. in LGRC, Room A112.