Visualization of changing confidence intervals

A method comprising:

• iteratively obtaining a plurality of incremental query results and a plurality of confidence interval values associated with respective ones of the incremental query results, each respective one of the incremental query results generated as a respective, temporally progressively generated part of an answer to an initial query, the respective incremental query results representing respective incremental results of a plurality of incremental queries operating on temporally progressively larger samples from a database;
• determining, via a device processor, incremental groups of the plurality of incremental query results and associated confidence interval values, based on a plurality of temporal intervals associated with incremental convergence of the plurality of incremental query results;
• determining incremental sets of visualization shape objects indicating uncertainty values, based on mapping values of respective ones of the incremental groups to points in the associated ones of the incremental sets, the uncertainty values visualized based on proportional shapes of the visualization shape objects;
• and
• iteratively displaying the incremental sets of visualizations shape objects, as the incremental sets of visualization shape objects are determined.

A method comprising:

• iteratively obtaining a plurality of incremental query results and a plurality of confidence interval values associated with respective ones of the incremental query results, each respective one of the incremental query results generated as a respective, temporally progressively generated part of an answer to an initial query, the respective incremental query results representing respective incremental results of a plurality of incremental queries operating on temporally progressively larger samples from a database;
• determining, via a device processor, at least one visualization comparison object representing a comparison of a plurality of distributions associated with the obtained incremental query results and confidence interval values;
• and
• displaying the at least one visualization comparison object.