Code Gestalt: a software visualization tool for human beings

Authors:
Christopher Kurtz
Affiliations:
RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany
Venue:
CHI '11 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems
Year:
2011

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Abstract

Programmers are often faced with the necessity to visualize source code and grasp its structure. In a survey we studied how developers deal with this task. Based on our findings, we present the software visualization tool Code Gestalt, which assists programmers in quickly creating class diagrams. We evaluated and refined our concept using two prototypes. As a result, Code Gestalt introduces the tag overlay and thematic relations. These augmentations to class diagrams display similarities in the vocabulary used in the underlying source code. This simple, yet effective toolset empowers the user to explore and visualize software systems. The preliminary results of a user study investigating Code Gestalt indicate good usability.