Designing a Visual Tool for Property Graph Schema Extraction and Refinement: An Expert Study

TL;DR

This paper explores designing a visual tool for property graph schema extraction and refinement, based on expert interviews, to establish design requirements and prototype a user interface that received positive feedback.

Contribution

It introduces a new design process for a visual schema tool for property graphs, incorporating expert insights to guide development.

Findings

Experts see value in schema extraction tools

Design requirements were established from expert feedback

Prototype received positive reactions from domain experts

Abstract

The design space of visual tools that aim to help people create schemas for property graphs is explored. Interviews are conducted with experts in the domain of property graphs and data management in general. Through this collaboration, we determine how a schema extraction tool can provide value. These insights are used to establish design requirements and design a UI prototype, which are then relayed back to the experts. Positive reactions were received, which encourage future work in the property graph schema space.