Identifying Usability Issues of Software Analytics Applications in Immersive Augmented Reality

Software Visualization in Augmented Reality
📌 The video introduces a visual software analytics tool designed for Augmented Reality (AR), demonstrated using the Microsoft HoloLens.
👓 The direct visualization experience offers a stronger contrast and less edge flickering compared to the recorded view.
🏙️ The core interface is a city visualization that can be placed anywhere, showing an overview consisting of districts and buildings representing the complete system.

Interface Interaction and Data Inspection
👆 Users can adjust the city's size, rotation, and position using a "transform button" and gear cheap gesture.
🔬 Gazing at specific buildings or districts allows inspection of associated package and class names.
💻 Clicking on a building opens the corresponding source code, and dialog boxes provide additional information which can float or attach to real-world objects.

Filtering and Accessibility
🎛️ A filter dialog window allows navigation through package containment hierarchy to select individual packages, which updates the fully qualified name displayed at the top.
🚫 Districts can be hidden via filtering, although the presented window is currently a mockup that does not affect the visualization live.
🔗 The application is available on the Microsoft Store, with links provided for download, the open source repository, and related publications.

Key Points & Insights
➡️ The AR tool provides a 3D, spatial representation of software architecture, moving beyond traditional 2D analytics.
➡️ Interaction relies on gaze and gesture control (like the gear cheap gesture) for manipulation within the AR environment.
➡️ Source code inspection is directly linked to the visualized components (buildings), facilitating an integrated development and analysis workflow.

📸 Video summarized with SummaryTube.com on Jan 25, 2026, 17:11 UTC