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Motif simplification: improving network visualization readability with fan, connector, and clique glyphs

Published: 27 April 2013 Publication History

Abstract

Analyzing networks involves understanding the complex relationships between entities, as well as any attributes they may have. The widely used node-link diagrams excel at this task, but many are difficult to extract meaning from because of the inherent complexity of the relationships and limited screen space. To help address this problem we introduce a technique called motif simplification, in which common patterns of nodes and links are replaced with compact and meaningful glyphs. Well-designed glyphs have several benefits: they (1) require less screen space and layout effort, (2) are easier to understand in the context of the network, (3) can reveal otherwise hidden relationships, and (4) preserve as much underlying information as possible. We tackle three frequently occurring and high-payoff motifs: fans of nodes with a single neighbor, connectors that link a set of anchor nodes, and cliques of completely connected nodes. We contribute design guidelines for motif glyphs; example glyphs for the fan, connector, and clique motifs; algorithms for detecting these motifs; a free and open source reference implementation; and results from a controlled study of 36 participants that demonstrates the effectiveness of motif simplification.

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    cover image ACM Conferences
    CHI '13: Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
    April 2013
    3550 pages
    ISBN:9781450318990
    DOI:10.1145/2470654
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    Published: 27 April 2013

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    Author Tags

    1. graph drawing
    2. motif simplification
    3. network visualization
    4. node-link diagram
    5. visual analytics

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    Overall Acceptance Rate 6,199 of 26,314 submissions, 24%

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