Navicons for Collaboration - Navigating and Augmenting Discussions through Visual Annotations

As discussions move online, we need means that compensate for what we take for granted in face-to-face meetings: voice modulation, mimics, or gestures. There are three functions of these ´metadiscoursive´ expressions: 1) to navigate conversations and to direct the attention of our interlocutors, deciding what to discuss, reviewing what has been said, or how things are framed 2) to signal attitudes such as agreement or disagreement, or the level of certainty or commitment and 3) to annotate (visual) content with comments. These functions are crucial for the quality of discussions and can benefit from information visualization. To do this, we propose a classification of navigational moves and attitudes and their visual representation in form of "Navicons" and "Atticons". These icons help to improve the quality of online or face to face discussions, to plan conversations in advance, or to analyze past discussions. An example and outlook conclude the paper.