Tasks for multivariate network analysis

In Chap. 1, a multivariate network was defined as having two important characteristics. First, nodes are connected to each other via links; there is topological structure. Second, being multivariate, nodes and links have attributes associated with them, with these attributes having a value. In this chapter, we describe tasks associated with multivariate networks. We consider a task to be an activity that a user wishes to accomplish by interacting with a visual representation of a multivariate network. This implies that there is user intent [13], and that the network has been presented visually. At the highest level, this intent is usually described as the goal of obtaining insight about the data being studied [6].