TieVis: visual analytics of evolution of interpersonal ties

Interpersonal ties, such as strong ties and weak ties, describe the information carried by an edge in social network. Tracking the dynamic changes of interpersonal ties can thus enhance our understanding of the evolution of a complex network. Nevertheless, existing studies in dynamic network visualization mostly focus on the temporal changes of nodes or structures of the network without an adequate support of analysis and exploration of the temporal changes of interpersonal ties. In this paper, we introduce a new visual analytics method that enables interactive analysis and exploration of the dynamic changes of interpersonal ties. The method integrates four well-linked visualizations, including a scatterplot, a pixelbar chart, a layered graph, and a node–link diagram, to allow for multi-perspective analysis of the evolution of interpersonal ties. The scatterplot created by multi-dimensional scaling can help reveal the clusters of ties and detect abnormal ties, while other visualizations allow users to explore the clusters of ties interactively from different perspectives. Two case studies have been conducted to demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach. Graphical abstract