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Code annotations is a widely used feature in Java systems to configure custom metadata on programming elements. Their increasing presence creates the need for approaches to assess and comprehend their usage and distribution. In this context, software visualization has been studied and researched to improve program comprehension in different aspects.

This study aimed at designing a software visualization approach that graphically displays how code annotations are distributed and organized in a software system and developing a tool, as a reference implementation of the approach, to generate views and interact with users.

We conducted an empirical evaluation through questionnaires and interviews to evaluate our visualization approach considering four aspects: (i) effectiveness for program comprehension, (ii) perceived usefulness, (iv) perceived ease of use, and (iv) suitability …