Improving the usability of integrated applications by using interactive visualizations of linked data

  • Authors:
  • Heiko Paulheim

  • Affiliations:
  • SAP Research Darmstadt, Bleichstrasse, Darmstadt, Germany

  • Venue:
  • Proceedings of the International Conference on Web Intelligence, Mining and Semantics
  • Year:
  • 2011

Quantified Score

Hi-index 0.00

Visualization

Abstract

Today, data is contained in many different, heterogeneous information systems. For turning that data into valuable information, those systems need to be integrated. System integration on the user interface level, e.g., in portals or mashups, allows users to access multiple applications in parallel and explore the information contained therein while reusing familiar and powerful user interfaces. Linked data can significantly add value by allowing uniform access to the data contained in the systems, and by letting reasoners discover hidden, non-explicit knowledge from that data. In this paper, we present an approach combining both paradigms. A framework for integrating user interfaces is enhanced by the Semantic Data Explorer, which is interlinked with the integrated applications in a hybrid view. With a quantitative user study conducted in the emergency management area, we show that hybrid visualizations of annotated data help gathering information from integrated systems, even for users who are not trained with ontologies and semantic networks.