Home | Issues | About JGAA | Instructions for Authors |
Special Issue on Selected Papers from the Thirteenth International Symposium on Graph Drawing, GD 2005
DOI: 10.7155/jgaa.00152
Effects of Sociogram Drawing Conventions and Edge Crossings in Social Network Visualization
Vol. 11, no. 2, pp. 397-429, 2007. Regular paper.
Abstract This paper describes a user study examining the effects of different
spatial layouts on human sociogram perception. The study compares
the relative effectiveness of five sociogram drawing conventions in
communicating the underlying network substance, based on task
performance and user preference. The impact of edge crossings is
also explored by using social network specific tasks. Both
quantitative and qualitative methods are employed in the study.
It was found that 1) both edge crossings and drawing conventions
have significant effects on user preference and performance of
finding groups, but neither has much impact on the perception of
actor importance. On the other hand, node positioning and angular
resolution may be more important in perceiving the importance of
actors. In visualizing social networks, it is important to note that
techniques that are highly preferred by users do not necessarily
lead to optimal task performance. 2) the subjects have a strong
preference for placing nodes on the top or in the center to
highlight importance, and clustering nodes in the same group and
separating clusters to highlight groups. They have tendency to
believe that nodes on the top or in the center are more important,
and nodes in close proximity belong to the same group.
Some preliminary recommendations for sociogram design are also
proposed.
|
Journal Supporters
|