David François Huynh

In this age of data abundance, good information and insights are rare. Which sources of information and whose insights would you trust? Leaving the interpretation of data to derive information and insights to the media and we'll risk a skewed perspective; leaving it to other people and we'll simply miss out on valuable insights that they withhold.

It is thus important that everyone be able to deal with data themselves: gather data, sift through data, integrate data, interpret data, make informed conclusions, and present their findings to their peers and to the world.

My ongoing research focuses on designing usable tools that facilitate information access, management, visualization, and exploration for casual users—those without programming and system administration skills.

Latest Publications

Potluck: Data Mash-Up Tool for Casual Users. ISWC 2007.

Exhibit: Lightweight Structured Data Publishing. WWW 2007.

For more:
» complete list of publications
» my curriculum vitae

A Bit About Me

In my spare time, I read and draw. I enjoy working with my hands, building things, visualizing things.

This term, I'm taking Drawing Fundamentals SF160X-C1 (cont. ed.) at MassArt.

Project Highlights

Seek: An extension to Mozilla Thunderbird that provides faceted browsing features for searching through email more effectively.

Exhibit: a lightweight data publishing framework that you can use to create rich mash-ups (see screenshot below) using just HTML and JSON. No database, no web application whatsoever.

Potluck: a Web-based data mixing tool that supports drag and drop and simultaneous editing. "Stunning," said Jon Udell, but see this screen cast and judge it for yourself.

Picker: a web interface for students to select classes, built on top of Exhibit. It was spotlit on MIT's front page.

Timeline: the equivalence of Google Maps but for temporal data—the first Web API for rendering interactive timelines in web pages.

For more:
» complete list of projects
» media coverage of my research