  Hands-on training is an effective way to practice theoretical cybersecurity
concepts and increase participants' skills. In this paper, we discuss the
application of visual analytics principles to the design, execution, and
evaluation of training sessions. We propose a conceptual model employing visual
analytics that supports the sensemaking activities of users involved in various
phases of the training life cycle. The model emerged from our long-term
experience in designing and organizing diverse hands-on cybersecurity training
sessions. It provides a classification of visualizations and can be used as a
framework for developing novel visualization tools supporting phases of the
training life-cycle. We demonstrate the model application on examples covering
two types of cybersecurity training programs.
