CodeVoyager: Integrating Interactive Visual Aids with LLMs for Code Comprehension

Abstract

Understanding unfamiliar codebases is essential yet challenging in software development. Visual aids such as call graphs and control flow graphs can help, but often lead to information overload and limited interactivity. Meanwhile, LLM-based code assistants provide accessible natural language explanations that reduce cognitive barriers, but lack spatial context for code navigation. We posit that integrating these two complementary approaches can address their respective limitations. To validate this integration, we introduce CodeVoyager, a tool that combines LLM with interactive visual aids to support more effective code comprehension. We first conducted an exploratory study (n=11) to assess the tool's potential and identify areas for refinement. Following iterative refinement, we evaluated the enhanced tool against a widely used chat-based code assistant in a within-subjects study (n=16). Results showed that CodeVoyager improved code comprehension and increased user trust. These improvements were achieved by enabling seamless interaction between textual explanations and visual code exploration, mirroring how developers naturally discuss code. This work contributes to visual-LLM integrated developer tools through (1) a novel integration approach mirroring natural code discussion, (2) empirical evidence of improved comprehension and trust, and (3) design implications for multimodal code comprehension systems.