Motif Simplification: Improving Network Visualization Readability with Fan, Connector, and Clique Glyphs by Cody Dunne and Ben Shneiderman.
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.
When I read “replace,” “aggregation,” etc., I automatically think about merging in topic maps. 😉
After replacing “common patterns of nodes and links” I may still be interested in the original content of those nodes and links.
Or I may wish to partially unpack them based on some property in the original content.
Definitely a paper for a slow, deep read.
Not to mention research on the motifs in graph representations of your topic maps.
I first saw this in Visualization Papers at CHI 2013 by Enrico Bertini.