Assessing your graphing needs

Now that you have seen the broad array of available layout options and a bit of their respective capabilities, it is time to step back and reconsider what story you want to tell through the data. As you have just seen, there are many directions you can take within Gephi, and there is no absolute standard for right or wrong in your layout selection. However, there are some simple guidelines that can be followed to help narrow the choices.

If you are experienced with Gephi or another network analysis tool, you might wish to dive directly into the next section and begin assessing each layout type using your very own dataset; I will not attempt to convince you otherwise. This is a great way to quickly learn the basics of every layout offering and can be a great experience. On the other hand, if you wish to take a more focused approach, I will offer you a brief checklist of considerations that might help to narrow your pool of layout candidates, allowing you to spend...