Visualisierung von Software-Historie in Virtual Reality - Erweiterung einer Insel-Metapher zur Darstellung der Evolution OSGi-basierter Software-Projekt

Kurzfassung

Software visualisations using metaphors can provide an intuitive approach to the system’s architecture. An island metaphor is especially suitable for modular software systems. Apart from the current status of a project, its history is a crucial factor. It provides, among others, information about logical dependencies to help plan tasks for further development and maintenance of the software. Therefore, a visualisation of software history would be useful. At the moment, there are no visualisations using an island metaphor existing which simultaneously represent the history of the software project. This thesis presents a concept to extend the island metaphor in order to visualise software history. Its focus is to maintain the user’s mental map of the representation while the components of the archipelago are continuously adapted due to changes of the software system. The concept is implemented as a prototype integrated in the application IslandViz . This application already shows static software architecture in a virtual environment using an island metaphor. A subsequent user study compares the developed prototype to an existing, static software visualisation, which depicts software architectures independently at different points in time. The study shows that in order to identify changes, it is helpful that the user’s overview of the visualisation is kept over time. Users, on average, solve tasks up to 50% faster and answer questions regarding the depicted changes 33% more accurately in the newly developed prototype. At the same time, the user’s perceived mental effort is about 21% lower. In addition, the study reveals aspects for further improvement of this concept. The presented concept to visualise the history of modular software projects using an island metaphor will help plan development and maintenance tasks in the future.