The Effectiveness of Interactive Visualization Techniques for Time Navigation of Dynamic Graphs on Large Displays
This work addresses visualization challenges for researchers analyzing dynamic networks, but it is incremental as it compares existing techniques.
The study tackled the problem of comparing disjoint timeslices in dynamic graph visualizations on large displays, finding that interactive timeslicing benefits comparisons of distant points in time but offers less advantage for contiguous intervals.
Dynamic networks can be challenging to analyze visually, especially if they span a large time range during which new nodes and edges can appear and disappear. Although it is straightforward to provide interfaces for visualization that represent multiple states of the network (i.e., multiple timeslices) either simultaneously (e.g., through small multiples) or interactively (e.g., through interactive animation), these interfaces might not support tasks in which disjoint timeslices need to be compared. Since these tasks are key for understanding the dynamic aspects of the network, understanding which interactive visualizations best support these tasks is important. We present the results of a series of laboratory experiments comparing two traditional approaches (small multiples and interactive animation), with a more recent approach based on interactive timeslicing. The tasks were performed on a large display through a touch interface. Participants completed 24 trials of three tasks with all techniques. The results show that interactive timeslicing brings benefit when comparing distant points in time, but less benefits when analyzing contiguous intervals of time.