Comprehensibility of Data Mining Algorithms

Abstract

Data mining attempts to identify valid, novel, potentially useful, and ultimately understandable patterns from huge volume of data. The mined patterns must be ultimately understandable because the purpose of data mining is to aid decision-making. If the decision-makers cannot understand what does a mined pattern mean, then the pattern cannot be used well. Since most decision-makers are not data mining experts, ideally, the patterns should be in a style comprehensible to common people. So, comprehensibility of data mining algorithms, that is, the ability of a data mining algorithm to produce patterns understandable to human beings, is an important factor.