How to master challenges in experimental evaluation of 2D versus 3D software visualizations

Software visualizations in 3D and virtual reality are an interesting and debated research topic in academia. However, the benefits and drawbacks of 3D software visualizations in immersive environments compared to its 2D counterparts are not very well understood due to the lack of empirical evaluations. The challenge is to plan valid experiments with analogous 2D and 3D visualization techniques, while avoiding various influence factors and minimizing the threats to validity. In this paper, we present an experiment as part of a series using a structured approach to meet these challenges.