Visualizing Social Networks Using a Treemap Overlaid with a Graph

Abstract In the last few years, social networks have reached its highest level of complexity and scale but there is still a gap in how to represent these networks to a user for exploration and analysis. As a result, it is often challenging for a user to understand the relationships in the social networks and make an informed decision over it. Graphs have become a standard for social networks visualization and analysis. However, in this paper, a few visualizations based on a treemap overlaid by a graph with a different number of curves, edges, and nodes were designed and evaluated. As a case study, a Twitter network was visualized, where the treemap overlaid with a graph conveyed information on people in a network, their relationships and common interests. The performance of the treemap visualizations, including the accuracy and time of answering questions was evaluated by twenty three participants in comparison to another well-known visualization based on Euler diagram. Finally, the results of the performance evaluation, limitations and usefulness of the designed visualizations were discussed.