一句话：用 AR 三维可视化软件系统，并通过 20 名开发者的实验证明其比传统 2D 表示更利于软件理解。
软件理解传统上依赖阅读代码或查看屏幕上的 2D 图表，近年来虽有研究提倡用 AR/VR 等三维方式探索软件及其内部关系以获得更丰富的体验，但缺乏将三维表示与传统二维表示在软件理解场景下进行客观对比的研究。本文开展了一项评估研究，从定量与定性两个角度比较 2D 与 3D 软件表示在典型理解任务中的表现：3D 媒介采用基于 AR 的软件系统三维可视化方法 XRaSE，2D 媒介则包括文本 IDE 与二维图形表示。研究招募了 20 名职业开发者参与实验，结果表明在大多数理解任务中，开发者使用 3D 表示时表现明显更好，尤其在任务速度与记忆回忆方面，同时还表现出更低的认知负荷和更高的参与度。
While traditionally, software comprehension relies on approaches like reading through the code or looking at charts on screens, which are 2D mediums, there have been some recent approaches that advocate exploring 3D approaches like Augmented or Virtual Reality (AR/VR) to have a richer experience towards understanding software and its internal relationships. However, there is a dearth of objective studies that compare such 3D representations with their traditional 2D counterparts in the context of software comprehension. In this paper, we present an evaluation study to quantitatively and qualitatively compare 2D and 3D software representations with respect to typical comprehension tasks. For the 3D medium, we utilize an AR-based approach for 3D visualizations of a software system (XRaSE), while the 2D medium comprises of textual IDEs and 2D graph representations. The study, which has been conducted using 20 professional developers, shows that for most comprehension tasks, the developers perform much better using the 3D representation, especially in terms of velocity and recollection, while also displaying reduced cognitive load and better engagement.
DOI 原文 ·
@inproceedings{paperbot5954,
title = {Towards immersive comprehension of software systems using augmented reality},
author = {Rohit Mehra and Vibhu Saujanya Sharma and Vikrant Kaulgud and Sanjay Podder and Adam P. Burden},
booktitle = {ASE},
year = {2020},
doi = {10.1145/3324884.3418907}
}