Evaluating a fisheye view of source code

Navigating and understanding the source code of a program are highly challenging activities. This paper introduces a fisheye view of source code to a Java programming environment. The fisheye view aims to support a programmer's navigation and understanding by displaying those parts of the source code that have the highest degree of interest given the current focus. An experiment was conducted which compared the usability of the fisheye view with a common, linear presentation of source code. Sixteen participants performed tasks significantly faster with the fisheye view, although results varied dependent on the task type. The participants generally preferred the interface with the fisheye view. We analyse participants' interaction with the fisheye view and suggest how to improve its performance. In the calculation of the degree of interest, we suggest to emphasize those parts of the source code that are semantically related to the programmer's current focus. Author Keywo...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2006
• Where: CHI
• Authors: Mikkel Rønne Jakobsen, Kasper Hornbæk
• Keywords: CHI 2006, Fisheye View, Human Computer Interaction, Keywords Fisheye View, Source Code