Visualization of Variability in Complex Development Structures

Abstract

Mass customization in modern industries leads to an increased complexity in product line engineering due to the high level of variability. Real-world industry-sized product lines can easily end up with thousands of features and constraints. Using sophisticated information visualization techniques is one important component in handling this complexity successfully as they provide a higher level of cognitive support and make the comprehension of the underlying structures easier and faster. However, it is still an unresolved problem to handle the occurring variability in a satisfactory way. This means that we need visualization mechanisms able to cope with the requirements of engineers as well as with the needs of the responsible managers. This paper addresses the issue of visualizing large product lines and discusses different techniques which can be used towards an efficient visualization of variability. Furthermore, it presents alternative methods to visualize complex constraints and group cardinalities. These techniques will then be illustrated with the help of a prototypical implementation.