Graphical User Interface for Generating and Displaying Data Visualizations that use Relationships

A method generates a graphical user interface, which includes a schema information region and a data visualization region. The schema information region includes field names, each associated with a data field from a data source, and relationship names, each associated with a relation between rows of the data source. The data visualization region includes a row shelf, a column shelf, and a connector shelf. The method detects user selection of field names and a request to associate those field names with respective shelves in the data visualization region. The method also detects user selection of relationship names and a request to associate those relationship names with respective shelves in the data visualization region. The method generates a visual graphic in the data visualization region according to the associations between the user-selected field names and corresponding shelves and the associations between the user-selected relationship names and corresponding shelves.