Interactive Organization Visualization Tools for Multivariate HR Data
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current tools for analyzing multivariate human-resource data in organizations are often unavailable, unwieldy, or limited in functionality, especially for large organizations with thousands or hundreds of thousands of members, making it difficult to visualize and understand organizational structures effectively.
Innovation Solution
The development of interactive organization visualization tools that use node-abstraction algorithms to consolidate nodes and assign weights, allowing for the creation of abstracted organizational charts that can be visually rendered on an electronic display, enabling users to interactively explore and understand organizational data through diagrams like sunburst and icicle diagrams.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Loss of information
If traditional organizational chart visualization methods are used for large organizations, then complete organizational structure information is displayed, but the visualization becomes unwieldy and difficult to understand
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the organizational chart into multiple hierarchical levels that can be independently controlled. Users can collapse or expand specific levels to manage the amount of information displayed at once, making large organizational structures manageable while preserving access to complete information when needed.
Solution Approach 2:
The visualization system implements dynamic control where organizational levels can be expanded or collapsed based on user interaction. This dynamic behavior allows the same visualization to adapt between showing detailed complete information and simplified overview states, resolving the contradiction between information completeness and usability.
2Loss of information
If detailed organizational data for all members is displayed, then complete information is provided, but the complexity of data rendering increases significantly
Solution Approach 1:
The patent divides the organizational data into hierarchical segments that can be loaded and rendered selectively. By segmenting data by organizational level, the system reduces rendering complexity for any given view while maintaining the capability to access and display complete information across all levels when required.
Solution Approach 2:
The system implements partial rendering where only the necessary portions of organizational data are displayed at any given time based on user needs. This partial action approach reduces rendering complexity while preserving the ability to access complete information through expansion or navigation.
3Adaptability or versatility
If interactive exploration capabilities are added to organizational visualizations, then user understanding improves, but tool functionality complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements dynamic interactivity where users can expand and collapse organizational levels on demand. This dynamic capability provides interactive exploration features that enhance user understanding while keeping the base tool relatively simple, as the interactivity builds upon the hierarchical structure rather than adding complex independent functions.
Solution Approach 2:
The visualization tool achieves multi-functionality through a unified expand/collapse mechanism that serves multiple purposes: controlling information density, managing visual complexity, and enabling interactive exploration. This universal interaction model provides versatile exploration capabilities without requiring multiple separate complex functions.
Data Source
AI summary
Visualization tools, and systems and software underlying such tools, for allowing user to visualize organizations of people. Members of an organization are represented by unabstracted nodes. In some embodiments, visualization diagrams are efficiently created by abstracting the unabstracted nodes in a manner that reduces the number of nodes needing to be rendered, while retaining the visual character of a similar diagram composed of the original, unabstracted nodes. In these embodiments, regions of abstraction diagrams can be selectively de-abstracted in response to a user's selection within the abstraction diagram. In response to such a selection, in some instances only a particular hierarchical reporting chain within the organization, or a portion thereof, is de-abstracted to allow the user to view unabstracted nodes within that chain. Also disclosed are other visualization tools, such as attribute-overlay tools, time-scrubbing tools, and geographic distribution tools, among others.