Remixing visualization to support collaboration in software maintenance

We propose that collaborative software visualization can improve team software maintenance. We first review how visualization can support software maintenance from the perspectives of system understanding, process understanding and software evolution. From this, we conclude that visualization tools are rarely designed to provide explicit support for collaborative authoring and sharing of views. We then provide an overview of research from a computer supported cooperative work perspective, and propose that this research should be applied to software visualization. We explore the opportunities and challenges this research focus presents and conclude that more attention paid to the social aspects of software visualization should improve both individual and team processes in software maintenance.