Developing User Requirements for Visualizations of Literature Knowledge Domains

As researchers we are constantly working with our literature domains. Making sense and familiarizing ourselves with such domains is a cumbersome but necessary task that is part of every researcher´s career, especially novices. Literature knowledge domain visualizations exist which assist users in extracting and interpreting interesting patterns. However, these visualizations tend to be developed without reference to the particular needs of researchers or without addressing the specific challenges of the literature knowledge domain. This paper therefore targets the needs of researchers as they work with their literature. We conducted a qualitative study to understand how researchers make sense of their literature domains. Such information assisted us in coming up with a set of design considerations and guidelines which we believe will assist in building visualizations that are useful for the general research population