The Impact of Utilizing a Large High-Resolution Display on the Analytical Process for Visual Histories

Abstract

Visual history can be helpful in building awareness of various investigative documents exemplified by active visual artifacts that encourage the growth of and access to different threads of investigation. On the downside, however, with the growth of an analysis history, it becomes more difficult to keep track of the workflow and the decision-making processes throughout the analysis. This article explores the concept of supporting visual history through branching functionality for analyzing a cybersecurity dataset in a spreadsheet format using a large high-resolution display (LHRD). To support the findings, the authors conducted a qualitative study to investigate the effect of screen size on the analytical process and the support of visual history. A comparison of participants' analytic processes found differences between the two different display setups and revealed that the LHRD participants tended to take advantage of the visual history spatially during their analytical investigations.