A Measurement Study of Two Web-based Collaborative Visual Analytics Systems

In this paper, we present a longitudinal study of the use of two popular Web-based, collaborative visual analytics systems, Tableau Public and Many Eyes. As data has become more widely accessible through the Web, online visual analytics systems have emerged as a popular tool for data analysis and sharing. In spite of their growing popularity, however, little is known about how these systems are being utilized. The study presented in this paper addresses this shortcoming and shows details about the workloads of these systems, their users, the types of analysis they perform over single or integrated datasets, and their degree of collaboration. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study of its kind, and presents important details about the user of online, visual analytics systems.