Virtual Meeting Analyzer: A web application to visualize and analyze social networks emerging in group

The visualization and analysis of the social networks emerging between meeting participants could improve the communication effectiveness and satisfaction. However, accurate data collection is difficult, as it requires tracking all verbal exchanges with their direction, source and addresse(s). The analysis of this data is usually post hoc, after the meeting ends. Virtual Meeting Analyzer is a web application developed to solve these limits when tracking social network relations in small meetings. By using a simple interface, and a tablet PC pen as input modality, users without any specific skill in Social Network Analysis or informatics can extract indices on the spot. The application is divided into four modules: meeting creation, configuration, recording, and analysis (either during the meeting or afterwards). This paper describes the design of the application and the results of a tests carried out to evaluate its usability.