Visualizing Streaming Data

Chapter 13. Collaboration

This chapter assumes a scenario where multiple people are watching and interacting with a streaming visualization and it makes sense for them to interact within the system. Anything that reaches this point is pretty successful.

Why Collaborate

Engaging analysts at a social level brings a lot of benefits. We have a tendency to help each other and work together when given common goals and the right environment. Each person has strengths to leverage and gaps to cover. Collaboration can improve quality and productivity. Here are a few things to support as collaborative features in a streaming data presentation:

• Workflow

• Peer review

• Team awareness

• Team statistics

• Shared perspectives

Workflow is the set of processes used to create a desired outcome. Presenting the workflow helps bring an awareness of the overall system. Building workflow components into the visualization allows people to adjust their work efforts based on that awareness, and thus bringing the two together can make a big difference in productivity.

Workflow is relevant to collaboration because it often involves people. Processes may automate as much information collection and processing as possible and even make recommendations for action, but then still present those recommendations to an analyst to approve, reject, or question. The following are parts of the workflow that could ...