FeatureVista: Interactive feature visualization

Abstract

Comprehending and characterizing the spread and interaction of features in a software system is know to be difficult and error-prone. This paper presents FeatureVista, a lightweight tool providing interactive, glyph-based, and iconic visualization concepts designed to visually characterize the feature locations in software assets (source code). FeatureVista supports navigating between software components and features in an equal fashion. Our pilot study indicates that FeatureVista is intuitive and supports comprehending features. It helps to precisely characterize relations among features in large software systems and to contrast explicit software component definitions (e.g., package, class, method) with annotated feature portions - -which so far was a largely manual and error-prone activity, albeit essential to get an adequate understanding of a software system. We suggest research directions for true, feature-oriented interfaces that can be used to manage software assets.