Visualizing Memory Consumption with Vismep

Detecting and repairing memory issues is still a challenging task. One reason is that understanding a program's memory usage involves a diverse and related set of dynamic and static aspects. Over the years, multiple tools have been proposed to assist practitioners in these activities. However, detailed information about how a tool helps users when analyzing memory usage is missing.This article introduces Vismep, an interactive visualization prototype to help programmers analyze Python applications' memory usage, and presents an exploratory study to understand the behavior and perception of users when using Vismep. As a result, we reported five information needs when participants analyze memory consumption and how they use Vismep to satisfy these needs. Besides, participants positively perceived Vismep due to their valuable views and high overall usability.