We see but do we grasp?

We see but do we grasp?
Visual competence in the context of complex interaction networks

Digital communication among individuals leads to vast complex networks of interactions. As participants in online worlds we are socially blind and unaware of the complex patterns within these electronic structures. However, knowledge of these structures is relevant to understand power, fluidity, access to information and social resources.

Some researchers suggested the concept of social translucency and started a discussion of how users in virtual spaces can benefit from utilizing visualization. Outside research, different visualization forms of social spaces are published every day. For example, sites such as visualcomplexity.com collect and classify more than 700 different approaches. Many of them take the form of networks.

Such network visualizations of complex systems appear to be very attractive and fascinating to humans, especially if they can spot their position within the large net. Still we don’t know systematically, what makes one visualization more suitable than the other? Research has developed approaches such as network analysis to relate quantitative structural metrics to network graphs in order to derive insights from the complex patterns. But what are users perceiving? How can such visualizations of complex systems benefit the users? What should be the ideal form of conveying a complex system so that the user can grasp some information from it? We don’t even know in which situations people would consider network visualizations of their own interaction helpful or dangerous or what visual variables are important.

The talk concludes with motivating a discussion of interesting research issues relating to visual competence in the context of complex networks of electronic interaction.

All are welcome!