The Benefits of Synchronous 
Collaborative Information Visualization
Evidence from an Experimental Evaluation                                     
Sabrina Bresciani       &        Martin J. Eppler
University of Lugano, Switzerland 
sabrina.bresciani@usi.ch

University of St. Gallen, Switzerland 
epplerm@gmail.com

Website: www.knowledge-communication.org
Video: www.youtube.com/watch?v=wsHlO8UXaLw

Context
Research question
In group facilitation, a suitable interactive visual support, 
compared to a textual support, leads to greater:

H1. Productivity

       
H2. Outcome quality
      

  

H3. Learning
        

H4. Satisfaction 


H5. Participation
       


Methodology
Results
Implications
Future
?
Does interactive visualization support knowledge sharing in organizations better than text based methods?
Hypothesis
Q     A
Experiment
Subjects: 131 managers (MBA classes)
Groups of 5 = 26 groups
Topic:Discuss strategy implementation problems 
As assigned by a previous study
with 116 different managers
3 conditions: control + 2 visuals
Control: 
flipchart 
Treatment 2: 
Suboptimal* 
visual template
(timeline)
Treatment 1: 
Optimal* 
visual template
(visual metaphor)
        
Limitations
>>
> Organization
> Group meetings
> Knowledge sharing
> Conceptual visualization

for all objective measures:
- number of shared information
- quality
- learning (recall)

for all subjective measures:
- satisfaction
- participation
Visualization > obectively better results
but subjects seem not to perceive it
Reappropriation
No significant difference between visualizations
Vis: better, never worse!
Findings
Only one person with 
 mouse and keyboard
Collaborative annotations / "secondary notation" 
Culture: Europe
Only interactive vis
Knowledge sharing
Green and Petre 1996
>
>
>
>
Touchscreens
Multi-mice
Paper condition 

Other tasks
Conduct abroad 
presenting, planning, ranking, idea generation
Singapore,... ?
Number of documented items
Range of documented items 
Number of relevant items
Structure (categories)
Equal redundancies [control]
Recall 
Knowledge gain  (new items, not previously known)
Satisfaction with process
Satisfaction with outcome 
Freedom of participation
Equality of participation 

Tentative hypotesis: the two visualizations (optimal and 
suboptimal) provide similar performances
Group
Objective
Individual
Individual
Individual
Subjective
Subjective
Objective
Objective
Group
Adaptive Stucturation Theory (AST)
Source: www.youtube.com/watch?v=wsHlO8UXaLw

YES
EQUAL
(ongoing research)
diagrams, knowldege maps, visual metaphors 
Software: let's focus www.lets-focus.com
Panel: Changing the world with visualization
> make an impact in the real world