The visualization component of the program means directly supports the way human beings (this includes researchers!) think, plan, and approach solutions in creative, yet systematic ways.

Tools are offered to visualize complex properties and relations between the objects accumulated during the process of eliciting meaning and structure from the analyzed data.

The object-oriented design of ATLAS.ti seeks to keep the necessary operations close to the data to which they are applied. The visual approach of the interface keeps you focused on the data, and quite often the functions you need are just a few mouse clicks away.

Another fundamental design aspect of the software is to integrate all pieces that comprise a project, in order not to lose sight of the whole when going into detail.

Therefore, all relevant entities are stored in a container, the so-called "Hermeneutic Unit (HU).” Like the spider in its web, the HU keeps all data within reach. Loading a project with hundreds of files is merely a matter of opening a single HU.

Version 5 further strengthens the idea of integration as it allows the inclusion of a larger variety of data types into the analysis. Rich Text documents including Excel™, PowerPoint™, and other “embedded objects” can now be analyzed as easy as plain text was in the earlier versions of ATLAS.ti.

Webster’s Dictionary defines the word "serendipity" as "a seeming gift for making fortunate discoveries accidentally". Other translations are: fortunate accidents, lucky discoveries. In the context of information systems, one should add: To find something without having searched for it.

The term "serendipity" can be equated with an intuitive approach to data. A typical operation relying on the serendipity effect is "browsing". This information-seeking method is a genuine human activity: When you spend a day in the local library (or on the World Wide Web), you often start with searching for particular books (or key words). But after a short while, you typically find yourself increasingly engaged in browsing through books that were not exactly what you originally had in mind.

Examples of tools and procedures ATLAS.ti offers for exploiting the concept of serendipity are the Object Managers, the Object Explorer, the interactive margin area, full text search, and the hypertext functionality.

Frankly, we threw in this term because needed an "e" to make for a smoother acronym! -)

Seriously, though: exploration is closely related to the above principles. Through an exploratory, yet systematic approach to your data (as opposed to a mere "bureaucratic" handling), it is assumed that especially constructive activities like theory building will be of great benefit. The entire program’s concept, including the process of getting acquainted with its particular idiosyncrasies, is particularly conducive to an exploratory, discovery-oriented approach.