Generating charts from data in a data table

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-11093703-B2
Application number	US-201715719425-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Sep 28, 2017
Priority date	Sep 29, 2016
Publication date	Aug 17, 2021
Grant date	Aug 17, 2021

Abstract

A method for generating a chart suggestion list using data present in a data table includes parsing cells of the data table to identify one or more columns and one or more data types of the cells, performing a statistical analysis of the one or more columns to obtain one or more statistics about the one or more columns, and creating one or more suggested charts based on the one or more statistics about the one or more columns and the one or more data types of the cells. Each of the one or more suggested charts represents at least a subset of the data in the data table. The method also includes generating a chart suggestion list including at least one of the one or more suggested charts.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A method for generating a chart suggestion list using data present in a data table of a collaborative spreadsheet stored in a cloud-based environment, the method comprising:
providing the collaborative spreadsheet to be displayed on a first device of a first user, wherein the collaborative spreadsheet is shared with a second user by granting permissions to the second user that allows the second user to concurrently edit the collaborative spreadsheet on a second device while the first user edits the collaborative spreadsheet on the first device;
parsing cells of the data table to identify one or more columns and one or more data types of the cells;
performing a statistical analysis of the one or more columns to obtain one or more statistics about the one or more columns;
creating one or more suggested charts based on the one or more statistics about the one or more columns and the one or more data types of the cells wherein each of the one or more suggested charts represents at least a subset of the data in the data table;
generating a chart suggestion list including at least one of the one or more suggested charts;
presenting the chart suggestion list on the first device of the first user;
receiving additional data in the data table from the second device of the second user, the additional data added by the second user while editing the collaborative spreadsheet on the second device concurrently with the editing of the collaborative spreadsheet on the first device;
while the chart suggestion list is presented on the first device of the first user, automatically revising at least one of the created one or more suggested charts to generate one or more revised suggested charts representing the additional data from the second device of the second user;
updating the chart suggestion list presented on the first device of the first user to include at least one of the one or more revised suggested charts, wherein the updating is concurrent with viewing of the collaborative spreadsheet on the first device; and
responsive to receiving, from the first device of the first user, a selection of a suggested chart of the chart suggestion list, inserting the suggested chart into the collaborative spreadsheet, the inserted suggested chart to be presented with the data table on the first device of the first user.

2. The method of claim 1 , further comprising providing a user interface comprising a first portion to present the chart suggestion list and a second portion to concurrently present the data table.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein:
creating the one or more suggested charts comprises applying one or more rules to the data table;
the one or more rules define a relationship between at least two columns of the one or more columns, the defined relationship including at least one of a relationship between column headers of the at least two columns that is designated for visualization, or a correlation between values of the at least two columns; and
the one or more rules define how to determine one or more chart types based on at least one of the one or more statistics about the one or more columns, the one or more data types of the cells, or the defined relationship.

4. The method of claim 1 , wherein creating the one or more suggested charts comprises applying the one or more statistics about the one or more columns and the one or more data types of the cells as inputs to a machine learning model that is trained to produce one or more chart types as a target output, the one or more charts are created based on the produced chart types.

5. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
creating at least a second data table containing a subset of the data from the data table based on the one or more statistics about the one or more columns and the one or more data types of the cells;
creating one or more additional suggested charts that each represent at least a subset of data in the second data table; and
generating the chart suggestion list including at least one of the one or more additional suggested charts.

6. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
scoring each of the one or more suggested charts based at least on one of the one or more data types of the cells, the one or more statistics, one or more criteria related to the one or more suggested charts, or a relationship identified between at least two columns of the one or more columns;
discarding the one or more suggested charts that receive a score below a minimum threshold; and
selecting the one or more suggested charts that receive a score above the minimum threshold to include in the chart suggestion list.

7. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
receiving a selection of a suggested chart from the chart suggestion list; and
causing display of an indicator for a plurality of cells in the data table involved in creating the selected suggested chart.

8. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
receiving a selection of a subset of data in the data table;
creating one or more revised suggested charts to represent the selected subset of data; and
generating a second chart suggestion list including at least one of the one or more revised suggested charts.

9. The method of claim 1 , wherein at least one of the one or more charts in the chart suggestion list represents transformed data, the transformed data resulting from a transformation applied to the data in the data table, the transformed data not depicted in the data table, and the transformation comprising at least one of aggregating, summing, or averaging.

10. The method of claim 1 , wherein the one or more statistics comprise at least one of a number of unique values in each of the one or more columns, a distribution of data in each of the one or more columns, a size of the data table, an average of data values in each of the one or more columns, or a range of data in each of the one more columns.

11. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
rearranging the one or more charts in the chart suggestion list by a processing device; and
selecting a first chart with a lower score to be displayed more prominently than a second chart with a higher score based at least on types of charts of the first chart and the second chart in relation to a type of chart of a third chart with a higher score than the second chart, wherein the types of charts of the third chart and the second chart are the same, and the type of chart of the first chart is different than the types of charts of the third chart and the second chart.

12. A system for generating a chart suggestion list using data present in a data table of a collaborative spreadsheet stored in a cloud-based environment, comprising:
a memory device storing instructions; and
a processing device coupled to the memory device, the processing device to execute the instructions to:
provide the collaborative spreadsheet to be displayed on a first device of a first user, wherein the collaborative spreadsheet is shared with a second user by granting permissions to the second user that allows the second user to concurrently edit the collaborative spreadsheet on a second device while the first user edits the collaborative spreadsheet on the first device;
parse cells of the data table to identify one or more columns and one or more data types of the cells;
perform a statistical analysis of the one or more columns to obtain one or more statistics about the one or more columns;
create one or more suggested charts based on the one or more statistics about the one or more columns and the one or more data types of the cells, wherein each of the one or more suggested charts represents at leas

Assignees

• Google Inc
• Google Llc

Inventors

• Viégas Fernanda
• Wattenberg Martin
• Smilkov Daniel
• Wexler James
• Gundrum Daniel

Classifications

• G06T11/26

  Drawing of charts or graphs · CPC title

• G06F40/183

  Tabulation, i.e. one-dimensional [1D] positioning · CPC title

• G06F40/18 Primary

  of spreadsheets (form-filling G06F40/174) · CPC title

• G06F40/177

  of tables; using ruled lines · CPC title

• G06F40/216

  using statistical methods · CPC title