Observations of Record-Keeping in Co-located Collaborative Analysis

Record-keeping is known to facilitate visual data analysis in single user and asynchronous collaborative settings. We Implemented Co Spaces, a tool for collaborative visual data analysis with a record-keeping mechanism that enables tracking of analysis history. Then we conducted an observational study with ten pairs analyzing a sales dataset, to study how collaborators use visual record-keeping during co-located work on a tabletop. We report actions on visual record-keeping and inferred key user intentions for each action. Actions and intentions varied depending on the analytical phase and collaboration style. Based on our findings, we suggest providing various views of recorded material, showing manually saved rather than automatically saved items by default, enabling people to review collaboratorsâ work unobtrusively and automatically recommending items related to a userâs analytical task.