Exploring Social Networks

with Matrix-Based Representations

Nathalie Henry*
&
Jean-Daniel Fekete
IN|SITU / AVIZ Lab.
INRIA / Laboratoire de Recherche en Informatique
*Université de Sydney
Nathalie.Henry@lri.fr, Jean-Daniel.Fekete@inria.fr
 The problem
Using Node-Link
diagrams to
visualize:

• Tree-like
• Small-world
• Almost-complete

http://www.infovis-wiki.net/index.php/Social_Network_Generation

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Exploring Social Networks with Matrix-Based Representations
 What social scientists
are looking for

• What are the

communities?
• How actors are linked
within the community?
• How communities are
linked?
• Who is central?

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Exploring Social Networks with Matrix-Based Representations
 Proposing a readable
representation for dense graphs

• What are the

communities?
• How actors are linked
within the community?
• How communities are ?
linked?
• Who is central?

[Ghoniem et al. 05]

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Exploring Social Networks with Matrix-Based Representations
 A A B C D
C A X X X

Matrix Visualization B
C
X
X
B D
D

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Exploring Social Networks with Matrix-Based Representations
 Matrix vs NodeLink

• Usable without reordering • Intuitive

• No node overlapping • Compact
No edge crossing • More readable for path following
Î Readable for dense graphs • More effective for small graphs

+ •
•
Fast navigation
Fast manipulation
Î Usable interactively
• More effective for sparse graphs

• More readable for some tasks

- •
•
Less intuitive
Use more space
•
•
Useless without layout
Node overlapping
Edge crossing
• Weak for path following tasks Î Not readable for dense graphs
• Manipulation requires layout
computation
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Exploring Social Networks with Matrix-Based Representations
 Communicate

Explore

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Exploring Social Networks with Matrix-Based Representations
 Participatory Design
• What Social Science researchers
– Use? (representations, software)
– Analyze? (datasets)
– Do? (tasks, exploration process)
– Want? (aspiration)

Observation

Evaluation Brainstorming

Prototyping

http://insitu.lri.fr/~nhenry/Workshop.html
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Exploring Social Networks with Matrix-Based Representations
 Needs expressed
for an exploratory analysis system
• Multiple representations
• Interaction… instead of parameter tuning

[Henry&Fekete06]
• Overviews
• Connected Components Representation
• Global Information on Graph and Social Networks
– Data, Attributes, SNA: actors, relationship, degree distribution, diameter, 5 most connected, 5 less
connected, centrality measures.
• Multiples représentations: Nœuds-liens (moreno30’s), Matrices (forsyth40’s)
• Layout for node-link, ordering for matrices
• Interactions directly on the network
– Filtering, Clustering (multiples), Aggregation
• Compare, Confront, Annotate

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Exploring Social Networks with Matrix-Based Representations
 Possible solutions
1. Improve one representation ¾ Better layout/ordering

2. Combine both representations ¾ MatrixExplorer

3. Augment one representation ¾ MatLink

4. Find hybrid representations ¾ NodeTrix

Find other representations ¾ TreePlus, Links over

Treemap, NetLens,
Semantic Substrates…

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Exploring Social Networks with Matrix-Based Representations
1. Improve one representation

Layout (Node-Link)
Order (Matrix)
 Reorder to understand
Bertin, 1967
• Why?

• Survey in progress
– Interactive techniques
– Algorithms for reordering tables
– Algorithms for graphs linearization v1 v2 v3 v4 v5 v6 v7 v8

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Exploring Social Networks with Matrix-Based Representations
 Identifying Visual Patterns

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Exploring Social Networks with Matrix-Based Representations
2. Combine both representations

MatrixExplorer
 MatrixExplorer [Henry&Fekete06]

• Matrices to explore
• Node-Link diagrams to present findings
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Exploring Social Networks with Matrix-Based Representations
3. Augment one representation

MatLink
 MatLink[Henry&Fekete07]
• Solving the path-
related tasks problem
for matrices

• Augmenting matrices
with interactive links

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Exploring Social Networks with Matrix-Based Representations
 MatLink: significantly improving
matrices
• Controlled experiment
– 3 vis. x 6 datasets x 5 tasks

Matrix , Node-Link, MatLink

Data: From almost-trees

To complete-graphs
Including small-world networks

Tasks: 1. CommonNeighbour,
2. ShortestPath,
3. MostConnected,
4. ArticulationPoint,
5. LargestClique

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Exploring Social Networks with Matrix-Based Representations
4. Find a hybrid representation

NodeTrix
 NodeTrix[Henry et al.07]
• Designed for small-
world networks
– Globally sparse
– Locally dense

• Visualizing dense sub-

graphs as matrices
• Interact to create, edit
and remove the
matrices

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Exploring Social Networks with Matrix-Based Representations
 NodeTrix

VIDEO :
http://insitu.lri.fr/~nhenry/nodetrix/nodetr
ix.mov

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 NodeTrix: the NetVis Nirvana?
9 Can you see every node?
9 Can you count each node’s degree?
9 Can follow every link from its source to
its destination?
9 Can you idenfity clusters and outliers?

• Node Labels
• Link Labels (excentric labels?!)
• … even clusters labels
• Node Attributes
• Link Attributes
• … even clusters attributes
• Directed Graph (links width?!)
… But… It’s gonna be crowded here !

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Exploring Social Networks with Matrix-Based Representations
 Visual Patterns

Cross Pattern Block Pattern Mixte Pattern

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Exploring Social Networks with Matrix-Based Representations
 Visual Patterns

Infovis Coauthorship (133 actors)

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Exploring Social Networks with Matrix-Based Representations
 Using Interaction for Story-telling

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 Future Directions
• Scaling up to very large network...
…the problem of reordering
• Provide usable tools to sociologists...
…the problem of bug fixing
• Navigating and aggregating [Zame]

• Towards collaborative exploration

• From exploration to story telling

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La Fin
 References
• N. Henry, J-D. Fekete, M. Mcguffin. NodeTrix: Hybrid Representation for
Analyzing Social Networks, Research Report 6183, INRIA, 2007.
https://hal.inria.fr/inria-00144496

• N. Henry and J-D. Fekete. MatLink: Enhanced Matrix Visualization for Analyzing
Social Networks. In Processding of the eleventh IFIP TC13 International
Conference on Human-Computer Interaction (Interact 2007), September 2007.
Springer Verlag. 14 pages, to be published.

• N. Henry and J-D. Fekete. MatrixExplorer: a Dual-Representation System to

Explore Social Networks. IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer
Graphics (Proceedings Visualization / Information Visualization 2006),
12(5):677-684, September-October 2006.

• M. Ghoniem, J-D. Fekete and P. Castagliola. Readability of Graphs Using Node-

Link and Matrix-Based Representations: Controlled Experiment and Statistical
Analysis. Information Visualization Journal, 4(2):114–135, 2005.

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