Visualization techniques for application in interactive product configuration

In product line engineering (PLE) a major challenge is the complexity of artifacts that have to be handled. In real-world product lines, variability models can become large and complex comprising thousands of elements with hundreds of non-trivial dependencies. Visual and interactive techniques aim to reduce the (cognitive) complexity and support the user during challenging PLE tasks like product configuration. There are many visualization techniques described in the literature — e.g., in Software Visualization — and some isolated techniques have been applied in PLE tools. Nevertheless, the full potential of visualization in the context of PLE has not been exploited so far. This paper provides an overview of (1) available visualization techniques and criteria to judge their benefits and drawbacks for product configuration, (2) which have been applied in product configuration in PLE, and (3) which could be beneficial to support product configuration. We propose a research agenda for future work in visual and interactive PLE techniques.