Graph Detective: A User Interface for Intuitive Graph Exploration Through Visualized Queries

Abstract

Graph databases are used across several domains due to the intuitive structure of graphs. They are well-suited for storing document collections together with their interlinkages through metadata and annotations. Yet, querying such graphs requires database experts involvement for query formulation, reducing accessibility to nonexperts. To address this issue, we present Graph Detective, a web interface that provides an intuitive entry point for graph data exploration, where users can create queries visually with little effort, eliminating the need for expertise in query writing. After processing, the resulting query output (a graph) is then rendered in an interactive 3D visualization. This visualization allows the analysis of structural traits of the resulting graph data, exploiting the documents and metadata interlinkage. Our user evaluation revealed that even individuals inexperienced with graph databases or graph data, in general, could satisfactorily access the graph data through our interface. Furthermore, experienced participants commented that our interface was more efficient than writing explicit queries in graph database query language. Interested users can find the code openly accessible on GitHub.