Flora: a visualisation method for analysing personal networks

All people are connected. Since the late 20th century scientists have explored the structure of the social network, in order to understand it and to rationalise the stunning fact, that not only we are all connected, we are also very close to one another. In this work, we propose a visual, straightforward method for analysing personal networks, from an egocentric point of view. To test the opportunities of the theory, called 'Flora', we examined it on Henry, a 28 years old man. Flora succeeded in effectively presenting Henry's social world to its full extent, revealing new insights, such as highlighting the fact that Henry's social life is primarily rooted in one particular network among the communities he is engaged with - the homosexual community.