Aiding Collaborative Reuse of Computational Notebooks with Annotated Cell Folding

Adam Rule (1) , Ian Drosos (2) , Aurélien Tabard (3) , James D Hollan (1)

1 Department of Cognitive Science
2 UC San Diego - University of California [San Diego]
3 SICAL - Situated Interaction, Collaboration, Adaptation and Learning

Computational notebooks aim to support collaborative data analysis by combining code, visualizations, and text in a single easily shared document. Yet, as notebooks evolve and grow they often become difficult to navigate or understand, discouraging sharing and reuse. We present the design and evaluation of a Jupyter Notebook extension providing facilities for annotated cell folding. Through a lab study and multi-week deployment we find cell folding aids notebook navigation and comprehension, not only by the original author, but also by collaborators viewing the notebook in a meeting or revising it on their own. However, in some cases cell folding encouraged collaborators to overlook folded sections or spend longer reviewing a notebook before editing it. These findings extend our understanding of code folding's trade-offs to a new medium and demonstrate its benefits for everyday collaboration. We conclude by discussing how dynamic reorganization can support sharing and reuse of computational notebooks.

Mots clés: Computational notebook; Cell folding; Jupyter Notebook; Ian Drosos

Domaines: Interface homme-machine [cs.HC]

Adam Rule, Ian Drosos, Aurélien Tabard, James D Hollan. Aiding Collaborative Reuse of Computational Notebooks with Annotated Cell Folding. The 21st ACM Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing, Nov 2018, Jersey City, United States. pp.1-12, ⟨10.1145/3274419⟩. ⟨hal-01863692⟩