Overview
Introduction
ONA Visual Lab is a browser-based environment for exploring and communicating organizational network data. No installation, no coding required to get started.
What it does
Organizational Network Analysis (ONA) maps how people communicate, collaborate, and exchange information inside a company. It turns relational data — who talks to whom, how often, across which channels — into a visual graph that reveals structural patterns invisible in org charts or spreadsheets.
ONA Visual Lab takes those graphs and makes them interactive. You can:
🔍
Surface structural patterns
Identify bridges, silos, isolated nodes, and peripheral actors through purpose-built analytical lenses.
🎨
Encode attributes visually
Map any node attribute — department, seniority, performance score — to color or size in real time.
⊞
Compare views side-by-side
Display two or more network views simultaneously. Selecting a node in one panel highlights it in all others.
↗
Share with stakeholders
Every visualization has a stable URL. Send a direct link, or embed a live graph in any HTML page.
Who it's for
The platform is designed for three distinct roles:
A
Analysts & Researchers
You work directly with the Lab — the interactive explorer.
Load any dataset, switch between visualizations, apply lenses, filter by
department or role, and compute centrality metrics (betweenness, PageRank) on demand.
Everything updates live without page reloads.
B
Authors & Configurators
You use the VizSpec Editor and Cockpit Editor
to define named visualizations and multi-panel layouts. You decide which dataset
each view loads, which color and size encodings are active by default, which
analytical lenses are available, and how the interface looks.
Your configurations are saved as JSON files and instantly available in the Lab.
C
Clients & Stakeholders
You receive a link to a Cockpit — a curated, read-only
multi-panel view pre-configured by the author. You can explore nodes,
read the legend, and hover for details. No editing capabilities are exposed.
Three levels of usage
Think of the platform in three progressive layers:
Dataset
raw network data
raw network data
→
VizSpec
visual recipe
visual recipe
→
Lab / Cockpit
live view
live view
| Level | What you do | Tools involved |
|---|---|---|
| 1 · Explore | Open an existing view, change colors and filters, run lenses, compute metrics | Lab |
| 2 · Author | Define new views (VizSpecs), build multi-panel layouts (Cockpits), configure defaults and lenses | VizSpec Editor, Cockpit Editor |
| 3 · Share | Distribute a stable URL, present a live Cockpit, embed a graph in an external page | Cockpit viewer, embed pattern |
Where to start
If you've never used ONA Visual Lab before, go to Quick Start 1 — Explore a Network.
It takes less than five minutes and requires nothing but a browser.