Dynamic networks reflect temporal changes occurring to the graph's structure and are used to model a wide variety of problems in many application fields. We investigate the design space of dynamic graph visualization along two major dimensions: the network structural and temporal representation. Significant research has been conducted evaluating the benefits and drawbacks of different structural representations for static graphs, however, few extend this comparison to a dynamic network setting. We conduct a study where we assess the participants' response times, accuracy, and preferences for different combinations of the graph's structural and temporal representations on typical dynamic network exploration tasks, with and without support of common interaction methods. Our results suggest that matrices provide better support for tasks on lower-level entities and basic interactions require longer response times while increasing accuracy. Node-link with auto animation proved to be the quickest and most accurate combination overall, while animation with playback control the most preferred temporal encoding.

翻译：动态网络反映图形结构发生的时间变化,并用于在许多应用领域模拟各种各样的问题。我们调查了动态图形可视化设计空间的两大方面:网络结构和时间代表性。已经进行了大量研究,评价静态图形不同结构表示的利弊,然而,很少有人将这种比较扩大到动态网络设置。我们进行一项研究,评估参与者对图形的结构和时间表现方式的不同组合的反应时间、准确度和偏好,这些组合涉及典型的动态网络勘探任务,同时不支持共同的互动方法。我们的结果显示,矩阵为较低层次实体的任务提供了更好的支持,基本互动需要更长的反应时间,同时提高准确性。与汽车动画的节点连接被证明是最快和最准确的总体组合,同时以回放方式控制最喜欢的时间编码。