Interactive Exploration of Co-evolving Software Entities

Frequent changes to groups of software entities from different parts of the system may indicate structural issues in the system´s decomposition. Analyzing such groups is needed to understand the underlying reasons for co-changes, and also determine how to resolve the issues. To date, static visualizations have been proposed to identify possible structural issues, but they help only to a certain extent. In this paper we discuss how interactive visualizations can further support the process of analyzing the structural issues identified. To validate the usefulness of interactive visualizations, we implemented a tool and applied it to a large and matured embedded software system. Our experience in using the tool along with the architects and developers suggests that interactivity adds much value when analyzing groups of co-changed software entities.