Building an Exploratory Visual Analysis Tool for Qualitative Researchers

Qualitative research is an integral part of both academic and non-academic research in various disciplines, including sociology, anthropology, geography, education, health sciences and other social sciences. In order to facilitate the expanding use of qualitative research in various disciplines, newer and more sophisticated exploratory tools that assist qualitative researchers in the entire research process ranging from exploration, analysis, synthesis to presentation of data is required. Visualization presents exciting possibilities in this regard and building an exploratory visualization tool for this purpose would be ideal. Current computer assisted qualitative data analysis software (CAQDAS) have aided qualitative researchers in coding, searching, indexing and analyzing their data. However these software have several shortcomings in terms of supporting the entire research process including inability to deal with geographic and temporal analysis as well as limited exploratory capabilities. I posit that an exploratory visualization tool can overcome the limitations posed by current CAQDAS and expand many possibilities for qualitative researchers. For this purpose I draw upon tools and techniques from current geovisualization and information visualization literature to propose a visualization framework for qualitative researchers which can be later be extended into an exploratory tool. 1