Gneiss: spreadsheet programming using structured web service data. (April 2017)
- Record Type:
- Journal Article
- Title:
- Gneiss: spreadsheet programming using structured web service data. (April 2017)
- Main Title:
- Gneiss: spreadsheet programming using structured web service data
- Authors:
- Chang, Kerry Shih-Ping
Myers, Brad A. - Abstract:
- Abstract: Web services offer a more reliable and efficient way to access online data than scraping web pages. However, interacting with web services to retrieve data often requires people to write a lot of code. Moreover, many web services return data in complex hierarchical structures that make it difficult for people to perform any further data manipulation. We developed Gneiss, a tool that extends the familiar spreadsheet metaphor to support using structured web service data. Gneiss lets users retrieve or stream arbitrary JSON data returned from web services to a spreadsheet using interaction techniques without writing any code. It introduces a novel visualization that represents hierarchies in data using nested spreadsheet cells and allows users to easily reshape and regroup the extracted structured data. Data flow is two-way between the spreadsheet and the web services, enabling people to easily make a new web service call and retrieve new data by modifying spreadsheet cells. We report results form a user study that showed that Gneiss helped spreadsheet users use and analyze structured data more efficiently than Excel and even outperform professional programmers writing code. We further use a set of examples to demonstrate our tool's ability to create reusable data extraction and manipulation programs that work with complex web service data. Highlights: A spreadsheet tool for using structured web service data. Constructing two-way data flow between web services andAbstract: Web services offer a more reliable and efficient way to access online data than scraping web pages. However, interacting with web services to retrieve data often requires people to write a lot of code. Moreover, many web services return data in complex hierarchical structures that make it difficult for people to perform any further data manipulation. We developed Gneiss, a tool that extends the familiar spreadsheet metaphor to support using structured web service data. Gneiss lets users retrieve or stream arbitrary JSON data returned from web services to a spreadsheet using interaction techniques without writing any code. It introduces a novel visualization that represents hierarchies in data using nested spreadsheet cells and allows users to easily reshape and regroup the extracted structured data. Data flow is two-way between the spreadsheet and the web services, enabling people to easily make a new web service call and retrieve new data by modifying spreadsheet cells. We report results form a user study that showed that Gneiss helped spreadsheet users use and analyze structured data more efficiently than Excel and even outperform professional programmers writing code. We further use a set of examples to demonstrate our tool's ability to create reusable data extraction and manipulation programs that work with complex web service data. Highlights: A spreadsheet tool for using structured web service data. Constructing two-way data flow between web services and spreadsheets without writing code. A new design to view and use hierarchical data in spreadsheets. An architecture that interacts with web services dynamically using spreadsheet data. … (more)
- Is Part Of:
- Journal of visual languages & computing. Volume 39(2017)
- Journal:
- Journal of visual languages & computing
- Issue:
- Volume 39(2017)
- Issue Display:
- Volume 39, Issue 2017 (2017)
- Year:
- 2017
- Volume:
- 39
- Issue:
- 2017
- Issue Sort Value:
- 2017-0039-2017-0000
- Page Start:
- 41
- Page End:
- 50
- Publication Date:
- 2017-04
- Subjects:
- Spreadsheet -- Mashup -- End-user programming
Visual programming languages (Computer science) -- Periodicals
Visual programming (Computer science) -- Periodicals
Programming languages (Electronic computers) -- Semantics -- Periodicals
Langages de programmation visuelle -- Périodiques
Programmation visuelle -- Périodiques
Langages de programmation -- Sémantique -- Périodiques
Programming languages (Electronic computers) -- Semantics
Visual programming (Computer science)
Visual programming languages (Computer science)
Periodicals
Electronic journals
005 - Journal URLs:
- http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/1045926X ↗
http://www.elsevier.com/journals ↗ - DOI:
- 10.1016/j.jvlc.2016.07.004 ↗
- Languages:
- English
- ISSNs:
- 1045-926X
- Deposit Type:
- Legaldeposit
- View Content:
- Available online (eLD content is only available in our Reading Rooms) ↗
- Physical Locations:
- British Library DSC - 5072.495200
British Library DSC - BLDSS-3PM
British Library HMNTS - ELD Digital store - Ingest File:
- 21840.xml