Collaborative Software Exploration with Multimedia Note Taking in Virtual Reality

Exploring and comprehending a software system, e.g., as preparation for its re-engineering, is a relevant, yet challenging endeavour often conducted by teams of engineers. Collaborative exploration tools aim to ease the process, e.g., via interactive visualizations in virtual reality (VR). However, these neglect to provide engineers with capabilities for persisting their thoughts and findings.

We present an interactive VR visualization method that enables (distributed) teams of engineers to collaboratively (1) explore a subject system, while (2) persisting insights via free-hand diagrams, audio recordings, and in-visualization VR screenshots.

We invited pairs of software engineering practitioners to use our method to collaboratively explore a software system. We observed how they used our method and collected their feedback and impressions before replaying their findings to the original developers of the subject system for assessment.