Experimentally assessing the combination of multiple visualization strategies for software evolution analysis

•The definition of multiple visual strategies (MVS).•The benefits of combination MVS for software evolution analysis.•Experimental evaluation that supports the benefits of this combination.•Combined visualization strategies perform better in terms of correctness and analysis time.

Software engineers need to comprehend large amounts of data to maintain software. Software Visualization is an area that helps users to analyze software through the use of visual resources. It can be effectively used to understand the large amount of data produced during software evolution. A key challenge in the area is to create strategies to consistently visualize the many software attributes, modules and versions produced during its lifecycle. Most of the current visualization strategies seek to present data as a whole, including all available versions of the software in one visual scene. The area lacks strategies visualizing software in detail through the analysis of the evolution of specific software modules. Both strategies are useful, and should be selected according to the task at hand. This work focuses on combining software evolution visualization strategies, experimentally validating the benefits of the approach. Its goal was to build empirical evidence on the use of the combined multiple strategies for software evolution comprehension. It presents an experimental study that exploits the benefits of combining multiple visual strategies of software evolution analysis. The results show that combined visualization strategies perform better in terms of correctness and analysis time.