How analysts cognitively “connect the dots”
Lauren Bradel, Jessica Zeitz Self, Alex Endert, Mahmud Shahriar Hossain, Chris L. North, Naren Ramakrishnan · 2013
As analysts attempt to make sense of a collection of documents, such as intelligence analysis reports, they need to “connect the dots” between pieces of information that may initially seem unrelated. We conducted a user study to analyze the cognitive process by which users connect pairs of documents and how they spatialize connections. Users created conceptual stories that connected the dots using a range of organizational strategies and spatial representations. Insights from our study can drive the design of data mining algorithms and visual analytic tools to support analysts' complex cognitive processes.