Foresighted Heat Ring: Tracking the Productivity and Collaborativeness of Researchers in Dynamic Networks

In this paper, we present the design, implementation and an evaluation of the "Foresighted Heat Ring", a technique for visualizing the productivity and collaborative ness of researchers in dynamic networks. Our approach combines a heat map and a foresighted radial layout with physiological theories of visual perception to achieve visual stability on the drawing. The technique has been embedded into a network analysis workbench and applied to a time-sliced nanotechnology publication network from Web of Science. Based on this scenario, an evaluation with twenty participants was conducted. The results suggest that there are three factors that allow a visualization technique to be perceived as stable.