Browsers to support awareness and social interaction

The challenge of creating social browsing tools to access social information and patterns is of interest as a visual analytic problem. As study examples, two social browsers People and eTree, are used to demonstrate how social browsers exploit visual design and information visualization techniques to present social information to nonexpert visualization users. It is argued that such browsers should incorporate tools that let newcomers and visitors view and explore the evolution of information and the emergence of patterns in online social space.