Using Icicle Trees to Encode the Hierarchical Structure of Source Code

This paper presents a study which evaluates the use of a tree visualisation (icicle tree) to encode the hierarchical structure of source code. The tree visualisation was combined with a source code editor in order to function as a compact overview to facilitate the process of comprehending the global structure of a source code document. Results from our study show that pro- viding an overview visualisation led to an increase in accuracy and a decrease in completion time when participants performed counting tasks. However, in locating tasks, the presence of the visualisation led to a decrease in participants’ performance

On Using Tree Visualisation Techniques to Support Source Code Comprehension

This paper presents a design study that investigates the use of compact tree visualisations to provide software de-velopers with an overview of the static structure of a sourcecode document within a code editor in order to facilitate source code understanding and navigation. A prototype is presented which utilises an icicle tree visualisation to encode the control structure hierarchy of a source code document, as well as a circular treemap visualisation to encode the scope hierarchy of a source code document. An overview of the prototype and its functionality is given as well as a detailed discussion on the design rationale behind the tool. Possible applications and future work plans are also discussed

Visualising The Complex Features Of Source Code

Software development is a complex undertaking composed of several activities that include reading, writing, and modifying source code. Indeed, previous studies have shown that the majority of the effort invested in software development is dedicated to understanding code. This includes understanding the static structure, dynamic behaviour, and evolution of the code. Given these particular characteristics, as well as the high complexity of source code, it is reasonable to consider how visualisation can facilitate source code understanding. This work proposes to extend existing software development tools with visualisations that can be used to encode the various complex features within a source code document. Further, this work establishes a design space which includes a series of visualisations that are meant to complement existing textual views of source code, as found in source code editors. Several prototype visualisations are presented in this work which utilise various visualisation techniques, such as tree visualisations techniques and visualisation techniques based on the code-map metaphor. This work also presents several experiments, where the results of these experiments indicate that combining existing software development tools with visualisations can have a positive effect on source code understanding. Additionally, the result of the experiments show that the less a visualisation is abstracted from the original textural representation of a source code document, in terms of line, token, ordering, and character information, the more likely it is that viewers can link the visualisation to the code and back