Social Network Visualization: Can We Go Beyond the Graph?
Fernanda Viégas, Judith S. Donath · 2004
Visualizations have played an important role in generating new insights in social network analysis. We suggest that such visualizations can be of interest not only to analysts and researchers but also to the people whose data is being analyzed. In this paper we briefly talk about two visualizations of email that we developed to give people a better sense of their email archives and social networks. One visualization shows a traditional network graph with email contacts as nodes. The second visualization depicts the temporal rhythms of interactions in dyadic relationships between ego and individual contacts. While observing and interviewing users of these systems, it became clear that, when used in tandem, these visualizations complemented and clarified each other’s depiction of a person’s social network. Based on our experience with these two systems, we propose that visualizations of social networks that are aimed at end users ought to go beyond the graph paradigm. We posit that basic cartographic principles – such as adaptive zooming and multiple viewing modes – provide system designers with useful visual solutions to the depiction of social networks. 1.