Image-Schematic Metaphors in Software Visualization

Abstract

Software visualization (SoftVis) is widely used to facilitate the process of obtaining an in-depth understanding of complex software systems. SoftVis designers can draw on a wide pool of pre-existing conceptual metaphors that model the abstract target domain to tangible source domains. As regular user-centered design methods do not provide guidance on choosing etaphorical mappings, SoftVis designers choose conceptual metaphors primarily based on their subjective similarity to the underlying data structure. We want to include image-schematic metaphors in the SoftVis design process to provide designers with guidance on choosing visualization metaphors that are also in line with the users' mental model. This could allow SoftVis designers to make more data-driven design decisions and result in SoftVis that provides better insights.