How users transform node-link diagrams to matrices and vice versa

Abstract

A combination of node-link diagram and matrix seems to be beneficial since their respective strengths and weaknesses complement each other. However, users have to read both representations in different ways and switch between these representation styles. We conducted a user study to understand how users transform a node-link diagram to a matrix representation and vice versa. For this purpose we let participants draw node-link diagrams and matrices. The drawings were analyzed to identify strategies how user convert one visualization into the other one.