Patent ID: 8099674

Claim:
A computer implemented method for displaying a graphical representation of a dataset, comprising: at a computer having one or more processors and memory storing programs executed by the one or more processors: displaying a graphical user interface window including a schema display region and a data visualization region, wherein the schema display region includes multiple terms corresponding to a plurality of fields of the dataset, wherein each field defines a respective category of the dataset; receiving a user selection of at least a subset of the multiple terms in the schema display region and a user ordering of the user-selected terms in the data visualization region, each of the user-selected terms having an associated data type; and in response to the user selection and the user ordering, forming a plurality of alternative views using the dataset based on the user ordering of the user-selected terms; determining a rank for each of the plurality of alternative views based on the user-specified order and the associated data types of the user-selected terms and a rating system; selecting from among the plurality of alternative views a resulting view for displaying the dataset based on comparing the rank of the resulting view with the rank of at least another view of the plurality of alternative views; and displaying the dataset or a transformation of the dataset in the data visualization region according to the resulting view.