Sparnatural: A Visual Knowledge Graph Exploration Tool

Abstract

Knowledge Graphs are often relying on conceptual models with a high level of abstraction, making them hard to understand for nonexpert users, and are often hidden behind search forms, losing the flexibility to interact with the graph as a graph. In order to leverage knowledge graphs there is a need to propose end-user-oriented interactions demonstrating how they can allow to discover a knowledge domain. Sparnatural was designed and developed as a visual, configurable, easily deployable, open-source, client-side SPARQL query builder, allowing users to query any RDF knowledge graph. We describe here how Sparnatural works, how it can be configured, and we show how it was deployed in two demonstrators for the Archives Nationales de France and Bibliothèque Nationale de France. We show how Sparnatural has made it possible to give access to nonexpert users, with little effort, to these two large graphs. Workshops conducted with end-users showed they were enthusiastic about the possibility offered. They also revealed that this novel search paradigm is surprising and could benefit from user onboarding. The configuration of Sparnatural is key in providing efficient access to the graph and can be done through the specification of a search-oriented ontology.