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Automating Dashboard Displays with ASAP

Automating Dashboard Displays with ASAP

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  1. Automating Dashboard
    Displays with ASAP
    Kexin Rong
    Stanford InfoLab

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  2. Who am I?
    PhD student:
    Stanford InfoLab (Peter Bailis, Matei Zaharia)
    Main project:
    MacroBase, system for diagnosing anomalies
    Fun fact:
    first time in Portland + first conference talk!
    2

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  3. Problem: Noisy Dashboards
    Short-term fluctuations can obscure long-term trends
    HARD
    TO
    READ!
    SMOOTHED:
    MUCH
    BETTER!
    This talk: how to get the smooth plot automatically

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  4. This talk: how to smooth plots automatically
    New research:
    more informative dashboard visualization
    Big idea: smooth your dashboards!
    this talk: how much to smooth?
    Why smooth?
    38% more accurate + 44% faster responses
    Try it yourself:
    JavaScript library ASAP.js

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  5. What do my dashboards tell me today?
    Many dashboards we’ve seen plot raw data directly!
    Is plotting raw data always the best idea?

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  6. Is plotting raw data always the best idea?
    Example: Two servers from same cluster (production data)
    Are these two servers fundamentally different?
    Smoothed with ASAP Smoothed with ASAP

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  7. Is plotting raw data always the best idea?
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    1959-11
    1962-04
    1964-09
    1967-02
    1969-07
    Monthly temperature in England
    Excel
    Example: Monthly temperature in England from 250 years
    Temperature fluctuates on a yearly cycle => 250 spikes

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  8. 0
    2
    4
    6
    8
    10
    12
    14
    16
    18
    20
    1723-01
    1725-06
    1727-11
    1730-04
    1732-09
    1735-02
    1737-07
    1739-12
    1742-05
    1744-10
    1747-03
    1749-08
    1752-01
    1754-06
    1756-11
    1759-04
    1761-09
    1764-02
    1766-07
    1768-12
    1771-05
    1773-10
    1776-03
    1778-08
    1781-01
    1783-06
    1785-11
    1788-04
    1790-09
    1793-02
    1795-07
    1797-12
    1800-05
    1802-10
    1805-03
    1807-08
    1810-01
    1812-06
    1814-11
    1817-04
    1819-09
    1822-02
    1824-07
    1826-12
    1829-05
    1831-10
    1834-03
    1836-08
    1839-01
    1841-06
    1843-11
    1846-04
    1848-09
    1851-02
    1853-07
    1855-12
    1858-05
    1860-10
    1863-03
    1865-08
    1868-01
    1870-06
    1872-11
    1875-04
    1877-09
    1880-02
    1882-07
    1884-12
    1887-05
    1889-10
    1892-03
    1894-08
    1897-01
    1899-06
    1901-11
    1904-04
    1906-09
    1909-02
    1911-07
    1913-12
    1916-05
    1918-10
    1921-03
    1923-08
    1926-01
    1928-06
    1930-11
    1933-04
    1935-09
    1938-02
    1940-07
    1942-12
    1945-05
    1947-10
    1950-03
    1952-08
    1955-01
    1957-06
    1959-11
    1962-04
    1964-09
    1967-02
    1969-07
    Monthly temperature in England
    Excel Grafana
    Prometheus Tableau
    Is plotting raw data always the best idea?
    Example: Monthly temperature in England from 250 years

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  9. (this talk)
    Key Takeaway: Smooth your dashboards!
    A little smoothing can go a long way
    9
    Average
    temperature
    increases
    from the
    early 1900s

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  10. Q: What’s distracting about raw data?
    A: In many cases, spikes dominate the plot
    10
    Short-term fluctuations are overrepresented
    relative to the overall trends

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  11. Talk Outline
    Motivation:
    raw data is often noisy
    Observation:
    smoothing helps highlight trends
    Our research:
    smooth automatically with ASAP
    Going fast:
    optimizations for fast rendering
    11

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  12. How should we smooth visualizations?
    Q: What smoothing function should we use?
    A: Moving average works
    Signal Processing Theory: Optimal for removing noise
    1 2 3 4 5 6
    2.5 3.5 4.5
    window size: 4
    Average Average Average

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  13. How should we smooth visualizations?
    Q: How much to smooth?
    (What window size to use?)
    13
    Window too small?
    Noisy
    Window too large?
    Lose structure
    Original

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  14. How should we smooth visualizations?
    Q: How much to smooth?
    A: New approach called ASAP! Make your plots:
    As
    Smooth
    As
    Possible
    while
    preserving
    long-term
    deviations

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  15. As
    Smooth
    As
    Possible
    while
    preserving
    long-term
    deviations
    How should we smooth visualizations?
    How should
    we quantify
    smoothness?

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  16. How should we quantify smoothness?
    Measure Series A Series B
    Mean 0 0
    Standard Deviation 1 1
    Point-to-Point Variance 4 0
    2 2
    -2 -2
    .7
    .7
    .7
    .7
    Point-to-
    point
    differences?
    Smooth
    Not Smooth

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  17. How should we quantify smoothness?
    Measure Series A Series B
    Mean 0 0
    Standard Deviation 1 1
    Point-to-Point Variance 4 0
    diffs = []
    for i in range(0, len(x)-1):
    diffs.append(x[i+1]-x[i])
    return variance(diffs)
    How to compute point-to-point variance?
    Iterate through points
    Calculate differences
    Calculate variance of differences

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  18. As
    Smooth
    As
    Possible
    while
    preserving
    long-term
    deviations
    How should we smooth visualizations?
    How should
    we quantify
    smoothness?
    point-to-point
    variance
    Increase window size until…?

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  19. Constraint: Preserve deviations in plots
    Goal: avoid oversmoothing
    19
    Idea: measure the “outlyingness” of the plot
    Good: retains “outlyingness” Bad: loses “outlyingness”
    Original: noisy

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  20. Constraint: Preserve deviations in plots
    20
    Idea: measure the “outlyingness” of the plot
    Metric: measure the kurtosis of the plot
    Good: retains “outlyingness” Bad: loses “outlyingness”
    Original: noisy

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  21. Constraint: Preserve deviations in plots
    21
    Metric: measure the kurtosis of the plot
    High kurtosis: heavy tails, outliers
    Low kurtosis: light tails, uniform
    kurtosis = 4.3 kurtosis = 2.8
    kurtosis = 4.1
    Good: retains “outlyingness” Bad: loses “outlyingness”

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  22. 22
    m = mean(x)
    tmp = 0
    for i in range(0, len(x)):
    tmp += (x[i] – m)4
    return tmp / (len(x) * variance(x)2)
    How to compute kurtosis?
    Iterate through points
    Difference to the fourth power
    Divide by variance squared
    from scipy.stats import kurtosis
    Or, do it yourself
    Metric: measure the kurtosis of the plot
    Constraint: Preserve deviations in plots

    View Slide

  23. As
    Smooth
    As
    Possible
    while
    preserving
    long-term
    deviations
    How should we smooth visualizations?
    increase
    window,
    reduce
    point-to-
    point
    variance
    preserve
    structure
    by
    preserving
    kurtosis

    View Slide

  24. Should we always smooth?
    24
    Smoothing only
    decreases spikes!
    Rule:
    Do not smooth plots
    with high kurtosis (>10)
    Observation:
    kurtosis of top is 735
    Original
    Smoothed
    (Uniform is only 1.8)

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  25. ASAP Recap
    procedure:
    minimize
    point-to-point variance
    by adjusting window size
    while preserving kurtosis
    25
    As
    Smooth
    As
    Possible
    while
    preserving
    long-term
    deviations

    View Slide

  26. Try it yourself! ASAP.js
    Plotly.newPlot(graphDiv, layout [{
    x: time),
    y: data }]);
    Plotly.newPlot(graphDiv, layout [{
    x: time,
    y: smooth(data, pixels) }]);

    http://futuredata.stanford.edu/asap/
    1) Import: Include JavaScript library in dashboard
    2) Smooth: Call smooth() before you plot
    before
    after

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  27. ASAP in Graphite!
    27

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  28. Talk Outline
    Motivation: Raw data is often noisy
    Observation: smoothing helps highlight trends
    Our research: smoothing automatically with ASAP
    Smoothing function: moving average
    Objective function: minimize point-to-point variance
    Constraint: preserve kurtosis of original data
    Going fast: optimizations for fast rendering
    28

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  29. Does ASAP improve accuracy in identifying deviations?
    User study with 250 people
    29
    User study: quantifying ASAP benefits
    In which time period did a drop in taxi volume occur?
    original
    ASAP

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  30. User study: quantifying ASAP benefits
    In which time period did a drop in taxi volume occur?
    original
    ASAP
    28%
    44%

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  31. User study: quantifying ASAP benefits
    In which time period did a drop in taxi volume occur?
    original
    ASAP
    28%
    44%
    On 5 datasets:
    Accuracy: max 38% increase (avg 21%)
    Response time: max 44% decrease (avg 24%)

    View Slide

  32. Talk Outline
    Motivation: Raw data is often noisy
    Observation: smoothing helps highlight trends
    Our research: smoothing automatically with ASAP
    Smoothing function: moving average
    Objective function: minimize point-to-point variance
    Constraint: preserve kurtosis of original data
    Going fast: optimizations for fast rendering
    32

    View Slide

  33. Q: How to find optimal window size?
    Easy answer: try them all (or grid search)
    33
    for each window size w:
    xformed = moving_average(data, w)
    if smoothness(xformed) < best and
    kurtosis(xformed) > kurtosis(data):
    best = smoothness(xformed)
    best_window = w
    Iterate through windows
    smooth!
    preserve
    Kurtosis?
    is smoother?
    * Binary search doesn’t work because smoothness is not monotonic
    O(n2)

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  34. Q: How to find optimal window size?
    Easy answer: try them all (or grid search)
    34
    My research:
    exploit the fact that humans are easily fooled!

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  35. Optimization 1: Limited pixels
    Q: how many pixels does
    your phone have?
    iPhone 7: 1334 pixels
    What if I have 1M points?
    Only a few windows look different
    Idea: pre-aggregate according to resolution
    How to go even faster?
    > 3000x speedups with IPhone

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  36. Optimization 2: Update rate matters
    Q: Can you tell if these dashboards are updating
    at the same rate?
    36
    Idea: even if data arrives quickly,
    don’t update faster than humans can tell

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  37. Optimization 3: Exploit periodicity
    Example: taxicab volume fluctuates daily (i.e., is periodic)
    little benefit in smoothing using aperiodic window 37
    Original
    On period
    (1 day)
    Off period
    (10 hours)

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  38. Optimizations allow interactivity
    38

    View Slide

  39. This talk: how to smooth plots automatically
    New research:
    more informative dashboard visualization
    Big idea: smooth your dashboards!
    this talk: how much to smooth?
    Why smooth?
    38% more accurate + 44% faster responses
    Try it yourself:
    JavaScript library ASAP.js
    Demo, code and paper: http://futuredata.stanford.edu/asap/
    Kexin Rong, kexinrong.github.io

    View Slide