ManyNets: an interface for multiple network analysis and visualization

  • Authors:

  • Manuel Freire;Catherine Plaisant;Ben Shneiderman;Jen Golbeck

  • Affiliations:

  • University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA;University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA;University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA;University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA

  • Venue:
  • Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
  • Year:
  • 2010

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Abstract

Traditional network analysis tools support analysts in studying a single network. ManyNets offers these analysts a powerful new approach that enables them to work on multiple networks simultaneously. Several thousand networks can be presented as rows in a tabular visualization, and then inspected, sorted and filtered according to their attributes. The networks to be displayed can be obtained by subdivision of larger networks. Examples of meaningful subdivisions used by analysts include ego networks, community extraction, and time-based slices. Cell visualizations and interactive column overviews allow analysts to assess the distribution of attributes within particular sets of networks. Details, such as traditional node-link diagrams, are available on demand. We describe a case study analyzing a social network geared towards film recommendations by means of decomposition. A small usability study provides feedback on the use of the interface on a set of tasks issued from the case study.