Tidynote: Always-Clear Notebook Authoring

TL;DR

Tidynote is a Jupyter-based tool that enhances notebook clarity during exploratory data analysis by providing a scratchpad, movable cells, and linear execution with state forks, supporting better organization and understanding.

Contribution

It introduces a novel set of features for Jupyter notebooks that promote clarity and exploration, addressing a key challenge in notebook authoring workflows.

Findings

Tidynote features promote clarity throughout notebook lifecycle.

Supports realistic data analysis tasks effectively.

Enables new strategies for maintaining notebook clarity.

Abstract

Recent work identified clarity as one of the top quality attributes that notebook users value, but notebooks lack support for maintaining clarity throughout the exploratory phases of the notebook authoring workflow. We propose always-clear notebook authoring that supports both clarity and exploration, and present a Jupyter implementation called Tidynote. The key to Tidynote is three-fold: (1) a scratchpad sidebar to facilitate exploration, (2) cells movable between the notebook and the scratchpad to maintain organization, and (3) linear execution with state forks to clarify program state. An exploratory study (N=13) of open-ended data analysis tasks shows that Tidynote features holistically promote clarity throughout a notebook's lifecycle, support realistic notebook tasks, and enable novel strategies for notebook clarity. These results suggest that Tidynote supports maintaining clarity throughout the entirety of notebook authoring.