VISON: Software Visualization Ontology

Problem

Although a myriad of software visualizations have been proposed to tackle multiple development concerns, software visualizations are yet not commonly used by developers. The lack of organization among visualizations and the particularity of development concerns obstruct developers to identify a suitable visualization.

Approach

Ontologies are formal explicit descriptions of concepts in a domain. Ontologies can help to

• share common understanding of the structure of information among people or software agents,
• reuse of domain knowledge,
• enforce domain assumptions explicit,
• separate domain knowledge from the operational knowledge, and
• analyze domain knowledge.

In this project, we will design and build a software visualization ontology that encapsulates the main concepts and relationships of software visualizations such as task, technique, medium. As a result, the ontology not only will help developers to find suitable visualizations for their particular problems but will also support researchers to reflect on the software visualization domain.

Readings

• Noy, Natalya F., and Deborah L. McGuinness. "Ontology development 101: A guide to creating your first ontology." (2001)
• Towards Actionable Visualisation in Software Development

Contact: Leonel Merino