Point, Talk, Publish: Visualization and the Web

Abstract

The power of data visualization comes from social as well as visual processes. Visual analysis is often a group effort, as people share findings, confer with colleagues, and present results. Furthermore, thanks to the Web, collaborative data analysis tools are becoming more broadly available, taking new forms and reaching audiences of unprecedented scale. This chapter discusses the design of systems that support collaborative visualization on the Web, where users can interact across both time and space. We use a simple mantra---point, talk, publish---to guide discussion of the design decisions required by asynchronous collaborative visualization. We describe a number of collaboration mechanisms for view sharing, annotation, discussion, and publishing in interactive visualization, and present case studies of current systems. We also discuss theoretical frameworks that help guide future research in this emerging area.