Visualize local neighborhood for supporting debugging

Developing software is complex, debugging even more. In this thesis an approach is presented to reduce the debugger’s burden by introducing visual support for debugging. This is accomplished by using multiple supporting debugging concepts which are implemented in the tool: the Visual Debugger. The Visual Debugger supports debugging by visualizing the local neighborhood at runtime when debugging with a specialized hierarchical graph. The visualization provides the user easy access to an overview and details of the dependencies surrounding the executing method. The concept of visualizing local neighborhood to support debugging is tested in a pre-post test user experiment in which participants solve debug tasks with the Visual Debugger and answer questions about their debug habits. The questions involve how participants experience the tool and how they use a debugger. The results show that the capability of the Visual Debugger to support debugging by visualizing the local neighborhood is useful but more optimization and research is required to relate this result to improved program understanding.