Visualisation of variability in software product line engineering

Using a product line approach allows companies realize significant improvements in time-to-market, cost, productivity, and quality. One fundamental problem in software product line engineering is related to the fact that a product line of industrial size can easily incorporate several thousand variation points. This makes variability management and product derivation tasks extremely difficult. This paper elaborates on the idea of using visualisation techniques to support and improve the effectiveness of these tasks. A reference model that helps to frame the visualisation research and important areas that affect the use of visualisation techniques in software product line engineering are presented.