Towards Improving the Mental Model of Software Developers through Cartographic Visualization

TL;DR

This paper introduces CODEMAP, a cartographic visualization tool embedded in IDEs to help developers form a shared, spatial mental model of their software projects, aiming to improve understanding and collaboration.

Contribution

It presents a novel IDE plugin that visualizes software structure spatially, supported by preliminary user study results demonstrating its potential benefits.

Findings

Developers found the map helpful for understanding code structure.

Preliminary user feedback indicates improved mental models.

The visualization aids in navigation and task management within the code.

Abstract

Software is intangible and knowledge about software systems is typically tacit. The mental model of software developers is thus an important factor in software engineering. It is our vision that developers should be able to refer to code as being "up in the north", "over in the west", or "down-under in the south". We want to provide developers, and everyone else involved in software development, with a *shared*, spatial and stable mental model of their software project. We aim to reinforce this by embedding a cartographic visualization in the IDE (Integrated Development Environment). The visualization is always visible in the bottom-left, similar to the GPS navigation device for car drivers. For each development task, related information is displayed on the map. In this paper we present CODEMAP, an eclipse plug-in, and report on preliminary results from an ongoing user study with professional developers and students.