Visitre

Visitre is a term used in information visualization and human-computer interaction to describe a compact, visual representation of a user’s visitation sequence through content, space, or a digital interface. A visitre encodes the order of interactions, timing information such as dwell duration, and transitions between nodes through a minimal visual grammar of nodes and directed edges, often augmented by color or temporal tracks.

Etymology and scope

Coined from a blend of “visual” and “visitor,” the term Visitre has no single official provenance but appears in academic and industry discussions to distinguish sequential navigation patterns from static heatmaps or summary metrics. It may refer to both the artifact (the visualization itself) and the process of creating it (the recording and rendering workflow).

Applications and data

Visitre is used to analyze user navigation in websites, mobile apps, museum spaces, retail layouts, and other interactive environments. Data sources include server logs, sensor beacons, RFID, and manual annotations. Typical visual forms combine a node-and-edge graph with a timeline or layered elements, enabling analysts to identify common paths, bottlenecks, and dwell hotspots.

Limitations and considerations

Interpreting visitre requires context, as paths can be influenced by task goals, testing conditions, and data gaps. Producing accurate visitre visualizations raises privacy concerns, demands data quality controls, and involves trade-offs between readability and detail. As a concept, it complements other measures such as click-through rates and heatmaps by emphasizing sequential dynamics.

See also: path analysis, heatmap, gaze plot.