Approaches to visualising Linked Data: A survey

The uptake and consumption of Linked Data is currently restricted almost entirely to the Semantic Web community. While the utility of Linked Data to non-tech savvy web users is evident, the lack of technical knowledge and an understanding of the intricacies of the semantic technology stack limit such users in their ability to interpret and make use of the Web of Data. A key solution in overcoming this hurdle is to visualise Linked Data in a coherent and legible manner, allowing non-domain and non-technical audiences to obtain a good understanding of its structure, and therefore implicitly compose queries, identify links between resources and intuitively discover new pieces of information. In this paper we describe key requirements which the visualisation of Linked Data must fulfil in order to lower the technical barrier and make the Web of Data accessible for all. We provide an extensive survey of current efforts in the Semantic Web community with respect to our requirements, and identify the potential for visual support to lead to more effective, intuitive interaction of the end user with Linked Data. We conclude with the conclusions drawn from our survey and analysis, and present proposals for advancing current Linked Data visualisation efforts.