Debugging Vega through Inspection of the Data Flow Graph

Abstract

Vega is a declarative visualization grammar that decouples specification from execution to allow users to focus on the visual representation rather than low-level implementation decisions. However, this representation comes at the cost of effective debugging as its execution is obfuscated. By presenting the developer with Vega's data flow graph along with interactive capabilities, we can bridge the gap between specification and execution to enable direct inspection of the connections between each component. This inspection can augment the developer's mental model of the specification, enabling the developer to more easily identify areas of interest and implement changes to the resulting visualization.