Bridging Knowledge Gaps in Policy Analysis with Information Visualization

Today’s politicians are confronted with new (digital) ways to tackle complex decision-making problems. In order to make the right decisions profound analysis of the problems and possible solutions has to be performed. Therefore policy analysts need to collaborate with external experts consulted as advisors. Due to different expertises of these stakeholders the whole process may suffer from knowledge gaps. In our approach, we describe a concept to bridge these knowledge gaps by introducing information visualization and visual analytics to the policy analysis domain. Therefore, we refine a standard policy cycle at the stages relevant for the policy analysis. Secondly, we characterize the main stakeholders in the process, and identify knowledge gaps between these roles. Finally, we emphasize the merits of including advanced visualization techniques into the policy analysis process, and describe visualization as a facet bridging the knowledge gaps in a collaborative policy making life-cycle.