User Interface Tools for Navigation in Conditional Probability Tables and Elicitation of Probabilities in Bayesian Networks

摘要

Elicitation of probabilities is one of the most laborious tasks in building decision-theoretic models, and one that has so far received only moderate attention in decision-theoretic systems. We propose a set of user interface tools for graphical probabilistic models, fo-cusing on two aspects of probability elici-tation: (1) navigation through conditional probability tables and (2) interactive graph-ical assessment of discrete probability dis-tributions. We propose two new graphical views that aid navigation in very large condi-tional probability tables: the CPTree (Con-ditional Probability Tree) and the sCPT (shrinkable Conditional Probability Table). Based on what is known about graphical pre-sentation of quantitative data to humans, we offer several useful enhancements to probabil-ity wheel and bar graph, including different chart styles and options that can be adapted to user preferences and needs. We present the results of a simple usability study that proves the value of the proposed tools.