Call for Papers

Software visualization is a broad research area whose general goal is to enhance and promote the theory, realization, and evaluation of approaches to visually encode and analyze software systems, including software development practices, evolution, structure, and software runtime behavior. Software visualization is inherently interdisciplinary, drawing on theories and techniques from areas such as information visualization, human-computer interaction, computer graphics, and data science, and applying these in the software engineering domain.

The VISSOFT conference is primarily a venue for publishing and discussing research on software visualization. Consequently, VISSOFT brings together a community of researchers from software engineering, information visualization, human-computer interaction, computer graphics, and data science to discuss theoretical foundations, algorithms, techniques, tools, and applications related to software visualization.

VISSOFT, co-located with ICSME, encourages a variety of submissions that address outstanding challenges in software systems using visualization.
Topics of interest include but are not limited to the visualization of:

Software Engineering data, which may include (but is not limited to) source code, dependencies, repositories, developer social networks (like StackOverflow and GitHub), mobile app reviews, documentation, runtime logs, and DevOps data
Software development activities, which may include design, requirements engineering, software maintenance, program comprehension, software performance, software testing, and debugging
Software analytical approaches based on data science concepts
Empirical evaluations of software visualizations, including eye-tracking studies
Tools, techniques, and frameworks that include visual programming languages
Interactive and immersive techniques and algorithms related to software development
Integrating tools with development environments
Industrial experience with using software visualization
Techniques used in Software Engineering Education
Application of trendy techniques such as Machine Learning and AI-assisted models (Large Language Models, Large Multi-Modal Models with Software)
Application of techniques such as Augmented and Virtual Reality, and Sonification, to software engineering activities

We solicit papers that present original, unpublished research results. Papers will be rigorously reviewed by an international program committee. In addition to full technical papers, VISSOFT features both a New Ideas and Emerging Results (NIER) Track and a Tools Track, which present ideas still under development or demonstrate the functionality of newly developed tools. This year, we also include the Visualization Challenge, which aims to catalyze research efforts around a shared software engineering dataset. Additionally, we introduce a new Visions and Reflections Track, welcoming forward-looking visions and reflective perspectives that can shape the future of software visualization research. All accepted submissions will appear in the conference proceedings and the IEEE Digital Library.

Research Track:

A paper submitted to the Research Track must describe an in-depth and mature research result relevant to software visualization. The content of a technical paper can be a maximum of 10 pages long (including all figures, tables, and appendices). However, the 10-page limit does not include the bibliography, which is limited to two additional pages.

All paper types common in information visualization (technique, design study/application, system, evaluation, and model, as described in [1]) could be accepted for presentation. When convenient, papers should include a user evaluation demonstrating their effectiveness, such as showcasing improvements over comparable tools or, if novel, demonstrating their utility and practical application. However, depending on the kind of paper, maybe results can be shown to be sound without a user evaluation. This could be the case, for example, of structured literature reviews, or of papers solving specific problems already shown to be relevant for users, or to address relevant technical problems.

The submission of a video (up to 5 minutes in length) to accompany the paper is highly encouraged to show interaction possibilities where this matters for understanding of the paper. Even when, for convenience, the video could be uploaded to some streaming platform, it is encouraged that it is also archived in an open access archive, such as Zenodo. Following open science practices, authors are also encouraged to archive their artifacts in a reproduction package, also archived in an open access archive. Authors who provide a video and/or a reproduction package should add the corresponding links in a specific section at the end of the paper (“Supplementary materials” section).

Paper Awards: VISSOFT 2025 may award distinguished technical papers. In case a paper is awarded as “best paper”, it will be invited to submit an extended version, with at least 30% of new materials, to the IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics journal. This submission will go through the usual peer review process of the journal, and is not guaranteed to be accepted.

Artifact Evaluation: Paper authors are encouraged to submit research artifacts (e.g., tools, data repositories, frameworks, videos) for evaluation. For more details, please refer to the Artifact Evaluation Track.

Important Dates (23:59:59 AoE)
Paper Abstract: June 6, 2026
Paper Submission: June 13, 2026
Notification: July 26, 2026

Submission link: https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=vissoft2026

[1] l. Munzner, T. (2008). Process and pitfalls in writing information visualization research papers. In Information visualization: human-centered issues and perspectives (pp. 134-153). Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer Berlin Heidelberg.