UNIVERSITY OF CALGARY Lark: Using Meta-visualizations for Coordinating Collaboration by Matthew Andrew Tobiasz A THESIS SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF SCIENCE

Motivated by the increasing volume and complexity of real-world data, my research focuses on providing better soware support for co-located collaborative information analysis. In particular, I consider mixed-focus collaboration—team work characterized by frequent changes in collaboration styles, which range from loosely coupled, individual work to closely coupled, group work. I identify three concepts—temporal flexibility, spatial flexibility, and scoped interaction—which play important roles in this type of work scenario. To this end, I design and implement Lark: a coordinated multiple view visualization environment where the relationships and connections between individual views are made explicit through an integrated meta-visualization. is provides both visual workspace awareness and explicit collaboration coordination points which provide group members with the freedom to work in concert or independently. e coordination of interactions can help facilitate mixed-focus collaborative work by supporting both individual and group work, and the transitions between these different types of collaboration.