Requirements of Software Visualization Tools: A Literature Survey

Abstract

Our objective is to identify requirements (i.e., quality attributes and functional requirements) for software visualization tools. We especially focus on requirements for research tools that target the domains of visualization for software maintenance, reengineering, and reverse engineering. The requirements are identified with a comprehensive literature survey based on relevant publications in journals, conference proceedings, and theses. The literature survey has identified seven quality attributes (i.e., rendering scalability, information scalability, interoperability, customizability, interactivity, usability, and adoptability) and seven functional requirements (i.e., views, abstraction, search, filters, code proximity, automatic layouts, and undo/history). The identified requirements are useful for researchers in the software visualization field to build and evaluate tools, and to reason about the domain of software visualization.