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Abstract : |
Interactive responses and natural, intuitive controls are important for data analysis. We are building ABC, a scalable spreadsheet for data analysis that combines exploration, grouping, and aggregation. We focus on interactive responses in place of long delays, and intuitive, directmanipulation operations in place of complex queries. ABC allows analysts to interactively explore the data at varying granularities of detail using a spreadsheet. Hypotheses that arise during the exploration can be checked by dynamically computing aggregates on interactively chosen groups of data items. In this paper we describe our vision for ABC. We give examples that illustrate the need for interactivity in query processing and query formulation, the advantages of dynamic group formulation, and the usefulness of exploration in discovering hypotheses about data that can then be verified by aggregation. We briefly discuss the systems issues involved in building ABC, and mention our progress so far., |
