CSCW-oriented Research And Application Of Storyline Visualization Method

Computer Supported Cooperative Work provides support for intergenerational groups in computer-supported cooperative work to accomplish a common task. Therefore, the most important factors for CSCW are communication, cooperation and coordination among entity objects. With the increasing scale of project and the more complex functional requirements, group collaboration in the process of project development also becomes more and more important. In addition, the growth of the group size and the characteristic of people’s geographical dispersion, make the barriers of people’s separation in time and space increasingly prominent. Accordingly, it will affect the effective management of group members and the efficiency of group collaboration. In this dissertation, we propose to use the storyline visualization method to demonstrate the cooperative relationship and conduct in-depth research and optimization. The main work and contributions of this dissertation are as follows:(1) A local deformation framework based on the significance of contentIn order to solve the problem of partial enlargement of Storyline visualization view, a local deformation framework based upon the significance of content is proposed. Firstly, the calculation methods for visual elements and their significance are described. And the entity elements with higher significance are enlarged. Then, the partial enlargement and smooth transition for the important inter-session elements is conducted with the guidance of Gaussian function. Finally, lines are relocated according to the weight of their location.(2) A hierarchical plot visualization method in polar coordinatesThe traditional Storyline visualization technology has the limitation of applying only to linear continuous stories and the difficulty in well reflecting the development of the plots in a story. Therefore, a hierarchical plot visualization method in polar coordinates is put forward. Firstly, all of the inter-sessions are divided into groups according to the story elements. And the layout optimization for entities within individual group is conducted. Then, the hierarchical relationships of entities in polar coordinates can be confirmed. Finally, interaction and labels for groups are supported. And a fan-shaped visualization view could be generated.(3) Application examples of CSCW-oriented Storyline visualizationWe propose to use the storyline visualization method to demonstrate the cooperative relationship. Based on the text data such as project development log files, the complex relation of group collaboration can be visualized with the storyline layout through the mappings of being from the developer’s entity object to lines, from the job tasks to the inter-sessions, and from the cooperative relation among the entity objects to the distance between lines. It can get better results on both the aesthetic aspect and the practical aspect.