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arxiv: 2605.19400 · v1 · pith:TDOYP5QPnew · submitted 2026-05-19 · 💻 cs.HC

Once Again, with Style: Understanding and Supporting Partial Reuse in Dashboard Authoring

Nicole Sultanum , Gustavo Moreira , Arjun Srinivasan This is my paper

Pith reviewed 2026-05-20 04:27 UTC · model grok-4.3

classification 💻 cs.HC
keywords dashboard authoringpartial reusestyle and layoutdesign probeuser studyvisualization designreuse in HCIpresentation features
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The pith

Partial reuse of styles and layouts from existing dashboards can ease the labor of creating new ones.

A machine-rendered reading of the paper's core claim, the machinery that carries it, and where it could break.

Dashboard authoring often involves tedious work on formatting and layout that is repeated across projects. This paper explores whether partial reuse—taking style from one dashboard and layout from another—can help. Through a formative study and a prototype called ReDash tested with ten professional creators, the authors identify specific reuse needs and show that a tool supporting selection from multiple sources is promising. A sympathetic reader would care because it points to a practical way to reduce repetitive design effort in data visualization tools.

Core claim

The authors find that professional dashboard creators have clear needs for reusing presentation features like style and layout independently from multiple existing dashboards. Their concept validation with ReDash, a design probe, reveals opportunities and reflections on how such partial reuse can be supported in authoring workflows.

What carries the argument

ReDash, a design probe that enables partial reuse of dashboard presentation features (style and layout) from multiple sources.

If this is right

  • Presentation tasks in dashboard creation can be supported by borrowing elements from pre-existing dashboards.
  • Creators need to reuse style and layout features separately rather than whole dashboards.
  • Design probes like ReDash can surface opportunities for tools that mix features from several sources.
  • User-centered studies with professionals highlight challenges in current reuse practices.

Where Pith is reading between the lines

These are editorial extensions of the paper, not claims the author makes directly.

  • Such reuse mechanisms might integrate into existing dashboard software to change daily workflows for data analysts.
  • Extending partial reuse to data bindings or interactive elements could further reduce authoring time.
  • Similar approaches may apply to other creative tools like report generation or slide design software.

Load-bearing premise

Feedback from a small group of ten professional dashboard creators is enough to understand the needs and challenges of partial reuse for the wider community.

What would settle it

A larger study with dozens more dashboard creators that finds little demand for partial reuse tools would challenge the conclusions drawn from the formative and validation studies.

Figures

Figures reproduced from arXiv: 2605.19400 by Arjun Srinivasan, Gustavo Moreira, Nicole Sultanum.

Figure 1
Figure 1. Figure 1: A concept design from a study participant, featuring reuse instances documented as post-it notes, text/shape annota￾tions, and dashboard cut-outs. Refer to §2.2 for (A) - (D) callouts. 2.1. The Why: Challenges to Dashboard Authoring (Ch1) Redundancy. Some (3/7 participants) commented on the repetitive nature of authoring work, in that there are “no new prob￾lems we’re solving that haven’t already been solv… view at source ↗
Figure 2
Figure 2. Figure 2: The REDASH interface, our design probe, featuring: (A) a list of data-bound components; (B) the authoring canvas; (C) a list of dashboard references available for reuse, and corresponding (D) design bundles for quick style and layout reuse. target components (Op1). This flexibility supports multiple reuse workflows: from one-step operations such as creating placeholders onto a blank canvas from a single la… view at source ↗
read the original abstract

Presentation-oriented tasks including formatting and layout design are critical but often neglected aspects of dashboard authoring given their labor intensive nature. In this work, we follow a user-centered design approach to explore ways that partial reuse of pre-existing dashboards may support the dashboard design process. Based on collective feedback from 10 professional dashboard creators, we contribute: (a) findings from a formative study characterizing dashboard reuse needs and challenges; and (b) reflections and opportunities from a concept validation study with ReDash, a design probe for partial reuse of dashboard presentation features (style and layout) from multiple sources.

Editorial analysis

A structured set of objections, weighed in public.

Desk editor's note, referee report, simulated authors' rebuttal, and a circularity audit. Tearing a paper down is the easy half of reading it; the pith above is the substance, this is the friction.

Referee Report

3 major / 1 minor

Summary. The paper follows a user-centered design approach to explore partial reuse of pre-existing dashboards for supporting presentation-oriented tasks (formatting and layout) in dashboard authoring. Based on feedback from 10 professional dashboard creators, it contributes (a) findings from a formative study characterizing reuse needs and challenges and (b) reflections from a concept validation study using ReDash, a design probe enabling partial reuse of style and layout features from multiple sources.

Significance. If the empirical findings hold, the work could inform the design of dashboard tools that reduce labor in presentation tasks by enabling multi-source partial reuse. The paper is strengthened by its concrete design probe (ReDash) for concept validation, which grounds the reflections in a tangible artifact and provides actionable opportunities for future HCI research on reuse mechanisms.

major comments (3)
  1. [Formative Study] The formative study section provides no details on participant recruitment (e.g., criteria, diversity in dashboard scale/domain/tool ecosystem), interview protocol, data analysis method, or assessment of thematic saturation. This is load-bearing for contribution (a), as the characterization of reuse needs and challenges rests entirely on the 10-participant feedback.
  2. [Concept Validation Study] The concept validation study with ReDash similarly omits the procedure for feedback collection, participant tasks, and analysis of reflections. Without these, the opportunities and reflections in contribution (b) cannot be evaluated for reliability or depth.
  3. [Introduction and Contributions] The central claim that the 10 participants' feedback characterizes broader partial-reuse needs lacks any discussion of sample limitations, transferability, or how the convenience/snowball sample targeted relevant variation in presentation reuse scenarios.
minor comments (1)
  1. [Abstract] The abstract could briefly summarize the key reuse needs and challenges identified to make the contributions more concrete for readers.

Simulated Author's Rebuttal

3 responses · 0 unresolved

We thank the referee for their constructive and detailed feedback on our manuscript. The comments highlight important areas for strengthening the methodological transparency and the framing of our contributions. We have revised the paper accordingly to address each point.

read point-by-point responses

  1. Referee: [Formative Study] The formative study section provides no details on participant recruitment (e.g., criteria, diversity in dashboard scale/domain/tool ecosystem), interview protocol, data analysis method, or assessment of thematic saturation. This is load-bearing for contribution (a), as the characterization of reuse needs and challenges rests entirely on the 10-participant feedback.

    Authors: We agree that these methodological details are necessary for readers to assess the robustness of contribution (a). In the revised manuscript, we have added a new subsection in the Formative Study that specifies: recruitment via professional networks and snowball sampling targeting dashboard creators with at least two years of experience across domains (finance, healthcare, education) and tools (Tableau, Power BI, Looker); the semi-structured interview protocol covering current authoring practices, reuse examples, and pain points; inductive thematic analysis following Braun and Clarke with dual coding and consensus discussions; and confirmation of thematic saturation after the eighth interview, with the final two yielding no novel themes. These additions directly support the reliability of the reported needs and challenges. revision: yes

  2. Referee: [Concept Validation Study] The concept validation study with ReDash similarly omits the procedure for feedback collection, participant tasks, and analysis of reflections. Without these, the opportunities and reflections in contribution (b) cannot be evaluated for reliability or depth.

    Authors: We accept this critique and have expanded the Concept Validation Study section in the revision. The updated text now details the study procedure, including the specific tasks (participants created a new dashboard by reusing style and layout elements from two source dashboards using ReDash), the think-aloud and post-task interview protocol for collecting feedback, and the analysis approach (affinity diagramming of reflections by two researchers to surface opportunities and limitations). These clarifications allow readers to better evaluate the depth and reliability of contribution (b). revision: yes

  3. Referee: [Introduction and Contributions] The central claim that the 10 participants' feedback characterizes broader partial-reuse needs lacks any discussion of sample limitations, transferability, or how the convenience/snowball sample targeted relevant variation in presentation reuse scenarios.

    Authors: We acknowledge the original manuscript did not adequately address sample limitations. We have revised the Introduction and added a dedicated paragraph under Contributions to discuss the convenience and snowball sampling strategy, its implications for transferability, and the steps taken to capture relevant variation (participants from multiple organizations with differing dashboard scales, domains, and tool ecosystems). We now explicitly note that while the findings illuminate partial-reuse needs in presentation-oriented tasks, they are not intended as a comprehensive characterization of all practitioners and recommend future studies for broader validation. revision: yes

Circularity Check

0 steps flagged

No circularity: empirical HCI study grounded in external user feedback

full rationale

This is a qualitative HCI paper whose central contributions derive from a formative study with 10 professional dashboard creators and a subsequent concept-validation study using the ReDash probe. No mathematical derivations, fitted parameters, predictions, or self-referential constructions appear in the reported claims. The characterization of reuse needs rests on participant responses collected outside the paper rather than on any internal reduction, ansatz, or self-citation chain that would make the output equivalent to its inputs by construction. The work is therefore self-contained against external benchmarks and receives a score of 0.

Axiom & Free-Parameter Ledger

0 free parameters · 1 axioms · 1 invented entities

The central claim depends on the representativeness of a small user sample and on the assumption that a design probe can meaningfully surface opportunities for partial reuse.

axioms (1)
  • domain assumption Feedback from 10 professional dashboard creators sufficiently characterizes reuse needs and challenges in the broader population.
    The formative study uses this sample to ground both contributions.
invented entities (1)
  • ReDash no independent evidence
    purpose: Design probe to test partial reuse of style and layout from multiple dashboard sources.
    Introduced as the vehicle for the concept validation study.

pith-pipeline@v0.9.0 · 5621 in / 1147 out tokens · 33661 ms · 2026-05-20T04:27:22.636964+00:00 · methodology

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Reference graph

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