SPHERULE DIAGRAMS WITH GRAPH FOR SOCIAL NETWORK VISUALIZATION

Mithileysh Sathiyanarayanan and Donato PirozziUniversity of Brighton, UK and University of Salerno,

ItalyCOMSNETS 2016

Bangalore, India

Contact: M.Sathiyanarayanan@brighton.ac.uk

AIM OF THE RESEARCH

The main aim of this research is to develop a novel visualization for social networks which can significantly improve the analysis of social relationships by improving complexity, scalability and layout issues.

MOTIVATIONSocial network analysis (SNA) has become a greater

force in the field of information visualization which focuses on the social relationships and interactions among social actors rather than study individuals themselves who use social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, Google+ etc.

So, it is a strategy to investigate large social structures and trying often to pattern them effectively for better understanding and easy navigation.

OTHER MOTIVATIONS

There is a big need of visualizing tools for data analysts in various companies to understand online social relationships for advertising and promoting certain products.

However, the complexity and scale of digital communication motivates researchers to find alternative ways to represent social networks in visual form which are more efficient in communicating information.

PURPOSE OF SOCIAL NETWORK VISUALIZATION

Identifying the actors of a networkUnderstanding relationships in a networkAggregating the information on a social

network

GRAPHSDrawbacks:

Edge-clutter issuesComplexity issuesScalability issuesLayout issues

EULER DIAGRAMSDrawbacks:

Curve-clutter issuesComplexity issuesScalability issuesLayout issues

TREEMAP DIAGRAMSDrawbacks:

Tree-clutter issuesComplexity issuesScalability issuesLayout issues

EULER DIAGRAMS WITH GRAPHDrawbacks:

Curve-clutter issuesEdge-clutter issuesComplexity issuesScalability issuesLayout issues

TREEMAP DIAGRAMS WITH GRAPHDrawbacks:

Tree-clutter issuesEdge-clutter issuesComplexity issuesScalability issuesLayout issues

WHAT IS THE CHALLENGE? In this research, visualization of a social network using a

traditional Euler diagram is challenged by our novel visualization, Spherule diagram.

So, Euler diagram with graph and Spherule diagram with

graph visualizations were designed for a Twitter network and then compared by twenty-eight participants in an empirical form (evaluation).

OUR CONTRIBUTIONSDeveloped a novel visual method to

improve social relationship analysis;Designed, evaluated and compared

Spherule diagrams with Euler diagrams.

Fig:Spherule diagram with graph

DESIGN OF THE STUDY Diagrams were drawn using the software Inkscape. We

considered three different sizes of curves: small, medium and large.

28 participants were randomly selected from the various companies for the study.

Nineteen of the participants were male, nine female, and their age varied from 26 to 43 years with 29.5 years as the mean value for their age.

Next, all participants were asked questions based on the visualizations.

Diagrams drawn were randomised for the participants.

SOFTWARE FOR THE STUDY The empirical study was conducted using a

software developed by our team called as ‘Research Vehicle’.

The diagrams along with the questions were pinned in the software.

The software collected the errors committed by the participants and the time-taken to answer each question.

GOAL OF THE DESIGNED EVALUATION STUDY

1) To evaluate and compare the users’ task performance of the proposed Spherule diagrams with graph (SDG) with the task performance of Euler diagrams with graph (EDG).

2) To evaluate the impact of the number of sets, presence of regions, data items, social relationships in SDG and EDG visualization on their performance.

3) To evaluate the users’ preference on the two social network visualizations.

TASK PERFORMANCE STUDY The task performance study related questions are:

1) If X follows Y and how many people Y follows?2) Who are the common people X1 follows with X2?3) How many people X1 follows which does not

include common with X2?

EXAMPLE - QUESTIONS1. If LUKE follows Tom

Cruise and how many people Tom Cruise follows?

2. Who are the common people ADAM follows with STEVE?

3. How many people LUKE follows which does not include common with JOHN?

EXAMPLE - ANSWERS1. If LUKE follows Tom

Cruise and how many people Tom Cruise follows? Ans = 2

2. Who are the common people ADAM follows with STEVE? Ans = None

3. How many people LUKE follows which does not include common with JOHN? Ans = 5

SPHERULE DIAGRAM Euler diagram re-drawn as Spherule

diagram

DIAGRAM LEVELS FOR THE STUDY

Level 1 (4 sets): (a) Euler diagram (b) Spherule diagram

DIAGRAMS FOR THE STUDY

Level 2 (6 sets): (a) Euler diagram (b) Spherule diagram

DIAGRAMS

Level 3 (8 sets): (a) Euler diagram (b) Spherule diagram

DIAGRAMS

RESULT TABLE

1. Errors are less in Spherule diagrams when compared with Euler diagrams.

2. Time-taken to answer questions are also less in Spherule diagrams when compared with Euler diagrams.

RESULTS-1Accuracy Performance:Though there are less errors committed by the

participants in answering Spherule diagram questions but all the three levels revealed no significant difference between Euler diagrams and Spherule diagrams based on the chi-square test.

Time Performance: Participants took less time in answering Spherule diagram

questions and all the three levels revealed significant difference between Euler diagrams and Spherule diagrams based on the ANNOVA test.

PREFERENCE STUDY The preference study related questions are:

1) How many people are in the network?2) How many social connections exist in the network?3) Which person has the most tweets?4) How many connections Adam has?5) Are Mark and Adam connected?6) What are the common interests between John and

Luke?

RESULTS-2 Preference Results:

From the 28 participants, 21 participants (75%) preferred Spherule diagrams based on its simplicity, comprehensiveness, navigation, alignment (layout), set ordering and data items ordering characteristics.

One of the main feedback from the participants were to reduce further clutter in the graph edges of Spherule diagrams with graph.

BASED ON THE RESULTS Aesthetics: Compared to Euler diagrams’ curve

crossing, Spherule diagrams does not have any spheres crossing and there is no loss of information.

The other positives about the Spherule diagrams are simple in construction (not complex), easy to navigate, no clutter, set labels are in alphabetical order and regions are numbered sequentially.

FUTURE WORKSWe would like to improve Spherule diagrams by

optimizing graphs.More User Evaluation Studies are needed to further

evaluate the visualization efficiency and effectiveness.For practical work on Spherule diagrams, we are

thinking of providing a web-based implementation.In the next study, we will use crowdsourcing for

evaluation of the visualizations since the results obtained with 28 participants of this study must be verified for larger groups of participants.

Thank You and

Any Questions?