A method and system for providing an interface that allows navigation and display of a directed graph are provided. The interface provides visualization of an underlying graph structure comprising a plurality of hierarchies with shared common nodes, wherein the hierarchies do not necessarily share the exhaustive child-tree of the common node. The method provides for the interface to display a focus node, parent nodes (if any) of the focus node, and in-context children (if any) of the focus node. In a preferred embodiment, the displays of focus, parent, and in-context child nodes are textual displays rather than graphical node-link displays.