Abstract: This position paper explores the interplay between automation and human involvement in data science. It synthesizes perspectives from Automated Data Science (AutoDS) and Interactive Data Visualization (VIS), which traditionally represent opposing ends of the human-machine spectrum. While AutoDS aims to enhance efficiency by reducing human tasks, VIS emphasizes the importance of nuanced understanding, innovation, and context provided by human involvement. This paper examines these dichotomies through an online survey and advocates for a balanced approach that harmonizes the efficiency of automation with the irreplaceable insights of human expertise. Ultimately, we address the essential question of not just what we can automate, but what we should automate, seeking strategies that prioritize technological advancement alongside the fundamental need for human oversight.

Abstract: Efficient public transport systems are crucial for sustainable urban development as cities face increasing mobility demands. Yet, many public transport networks struggle to meet diverse user needs due to historical development, urban constraints, and financial limitations. Traditionally, planning of transport network structure is often based on limited surveys, expert opinions, or partial usage statistics. This provides an incomplete basis for decision-making. We introduce an data-driven approach to public transport planning and optimization, calculating detailed accessibility measures at the individual housing level. Our visual analytics workflow combines population-group-based simulations with dynamic infrastructure analysis, utilizing a scenario-based model to simulate daily travel patterns of varied demographic groups, including schoolchildren, students, workers, and pensioners. These population groups, each with unique mobility requirements and routines, interact with the transport system under different scenarios traveling to and from Points of Interest (POI), assessed through travel time calculations. Results are visualized through heatmaps, density maps, and network overlays, as well as detailed statistics. Our system allows us to analyze both the underlying data and simulation results on multiple levels of granularity, delivering both broad insights and granular details. Case studies with the city of Konstanz, Germany reveal key areas where public transport does not meet specific needs, confirmed through a formative user study. Due to the high cost of changing legacy networks, our analysis facilitates the identification of strategic enhancements, such as optimized schedules or rerouting, and few targeted stop relocations, highlighting consequential variations in accessibility to pinpointing critical service gaps. Our research advances urban transport analytics by providing policymakers and citizens with a system that delivers both broad insights with granular detail into public transport services for a data-driven quality assessment at housing-level detail.

Abstract: Clustering is an essential technique across various domains, such as data science, machine learning, and eXplainable Artificial Intelligence. Information visualization and visual analytics techniques have been proven to effectively support human involvement in the visual exploration of clustered data to enhance the understanding and refinement of cluster assignments. This paper presents an attempt of a deep and exhaustive evaluation of the perceptive aspects of clustering quality metrics, focusing on the Davies-Bouldin Index, Dunn Index, Calinski-Harabasz Index, and Silhouette Score. Our research is centered around two main objectives: a) assessing the human perception of common CVIs in 2D scatterplots and b) exploring the potential of Large Language Models (LLMs), in particular GPT-4o, to emulate the assessed human perception. By discussing the obtained results, highlighting limitations, and areas for further exploration, this paper aims to propose a foundation for future research activities.

Abstract: Categorical data does not have an intrinsic definition of distance or order, and therefore, established visualization techniques for categorical data only allow for a set-based or frequency-based analysis, e.g., through Euler diagrams or Parallel Sets, and do not support a similarity-based analysis. We present a novel dimensionality reduction-based visualization for categorical data, which is based on defining the distance of two data items as the number of varying attributes. Our technique enables users to pre-attentively detect groups of similar data items and observe the properties of the projection, such as attributes strongly influencing the embedding. Our prototype visually encodes data properties in an enhanced scatterplot-like visualization, visualizing attributes in the background to show the distribution of categories. In addition, we propose two graph-based measures to quantify the plot's visual quality, which rank attributes according to their contribution to cluster cohesion. To demonstrate the capabilities of our similarity-based projection method, we compare it to Euler diagrams and Parallel Sets regarding visual scalability and evaluate it quantitatively on seven real-world datasets using a range of common quality measures. Further, we validate the benefits of our approach through an expert study with five data scientists analyzing the Titanic and Mushroom dataset with up to 23 attributes and 8124 category combinations. Our results indicate that our Categorical Data Map offers an effective analysis method for large datasets with a high number of category combinations.

Abstract: Recommender systems have become integral to digital experiences, shaping user interactions and preferences across various platforms. Despite their widespread use, these systems often suffer from algorithmic biases that can lead to unfair and unsatisfactory user experiences. This study introduces an interactive tool designed to help users comprehend and explore the impacts of algorithmic harms in recommender systems. By leveraging visualizations, counterfactual explanations, and interactive modules, the tool allows users to investigate how biases such as miscalibration, stereotypes, and filter bubbles affect their recommendations. Informed by in-depth user interviews, both general users and researchers can benefit from increased transparency and personalized impact assessments, ultimately fostering a better understanding of algorithmic biases and contributing to more equitable recommendation outcomes. This work provides valuable insights for future research and practical applications in mitigating bias and enhancing fairness in machine learning algorithms.

Abstract: This position paper discusses the profound impact of Large Language Models (LLMs) on semantic change, emphasizing the need for comprehensive monitoring and visualization techniques. Building on established concepts from linguistics, we examine the interdependency between mental and language models, discussing how LLMs influence and are influenced by human cognition and societal context. We introduce three primary theories to conceptualize such influences: Recontextualization, Standardization, and Semantic Dementia, illustrating how LLMs drive, standardize, and potentially degrade language semantics. Our subsequent review categorizes methods for visualizing semantic change into frequency-based, embedding-based, and context-based techniques, being first in assessing their effectiveness in capturing linguistic evolution: Embedding-based methods are highlighted as crucial for a detailed semantic analysis, reflecting both broad trends and specific linguistic changes. We underscore the need for novel visual, interactive tools to monitor and explain semantic changes induced by LLMs, ensuring the preservation of linguistic diversity and mitigating linguistic biases. This work provides essential insights for future research on semantic change visualization and the dynamic nature of language evolution in the times of LLMs.