# ProvenanceWidgets: A Library of UI Control Elements to Track and Dynamically Overlay Analytic Provenance

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2407.17431 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.17431/

## Key facts

- Cited by 2 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- First posted on arXiv 24 Jul 2024.

## Built on by (most cited first, 2 of 2)

- [PromptCanvas: Composable Prompting Workspaces Using Dynamic Widgets for Exploration and Iteration in Creative Writing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.03741/) (2025)
- [Don't Click That: Teaching Web Agents to Resist Deceptive Interfaces](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.09497/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

We present ProvenanceWidgets, a Javascript library of UI control elements such as radio buttons, checkboxes, and dropdowns to track and dynamically overlay a user's analytic provenance. These in situ overlays not only save screen space but also minimize the amount of time and effort needed to access the same information from elsewhere in the UI. In this paper, we discuss how we design modular UI control elements to track how often and how recently a user interacts with them and design visual overlays showing an aggregated summary as well as a detailed temporal history. We demonstrate the capability of ProvenanceWidgets by recreating three prior widget libraries: (1) Scented Widgets, (2) Phosphor objects, and (3) Dynamic Query Widgets. We also evaluated its expressiveness and conducted case studies with visualization developers to evaluate its effectiveness. We find that ProvenanceWidgets enables developers to implement custom provenance-tracking applications effectively. ProvenanceWidgets is available as open-source software at https://github.com/ProvenanceWidgets to help application developers build custom provenance-based systems.