A study of end-user programming for geographic information systems

With the advent of Web 2.0, users now expect to be able to customise, edit and share information from any online device. These capabilities are unavailable in many geographic information applications and where it is, it is far too difficult to use. Satellite navigation devices and software are also not flexible enough in this regard. Current satellite navigation technology enables users to view maps and navigate easily. However, it does not support information sharing and marking-up maps with symbols other than routes and locations. Currently, a popular desktop solution to this problem is Web 2.0 Mashups, which enable implementers to correlate information from several web data sources into one coherent application. Mashups also have their caveats, as they are beyond the capabilities of lay users and, being web-based, they are not location aware and do not support mobility. This paper presents Mobile Collaborative Mapping (MCM), a browser-based location-aware collaborative map editor to address these shortcomings through a simplified editing system and revision based storage server and discusses its application in an e-Science scenario of use and the capabilities of the current MCM prototype.

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“…These assumptions indicate that system interaction intuitiveness and procedural simplicity take precedence [9], [12].…”

Section: Scenariomentioning

confidence: 99%

An approach to mobile collaborative mapping

Soon

Roe

Tjondronegoro

2008

Proceedings of the 2008 ACM Symposium on Applied Computing

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“…Storyboards do not suffer from Traynor and Williams' [27] finding that it is difficult to represent complex control flow constructs using comic strips. Storyboards are only used to show the execution, which is linear.…”

Section: Storyboardsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…[24][25][26][27]). A particular advantage of the comic strip notations is that they show how specific events in the execution fit together by representing them as a set of before and after states.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A particular advantage of the comic strip notations is that they show how specific events in the execution fit together by representing them as a set of before and after states. However, Traynor and Williams [27] have found that although comic strips are very good at showing a linear process, they have problems representing more complex control flow constructs such as branching and looping.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Learning by Building: A Visual Modelling Language for Psychology Students

Mulholland¹,

Watt²

2000

Journal of Visual Languages & Computing

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Cognitive modelling involves building computational models of psychological theories in order to learn more about them, and is a major research area allied to psychology and artificial intelligence.The main problem is that few psychology students have previous programming experience. The course lecturer can avoid the problem by presenting the area only in general terms. This leaves the process of building and testing models, which is central to the methodology, an unknown.Alternatively, students can be introduced to one of the existing cognitive modelling languages, though this can easily be overwhelming, hindering rather than helping their understanding. Our solution was to design and build a programming language for the intended population. The result is Hank, a visual cognitive modelling language for the psychologist. Our informal analyses have investigated the effectiveness of Hank in its intended context of use, both as a paper and pencil exercise for individuals, and as a computer based project to be carried out in groups. The findings largely support the Hank design decisions, and illuminate many of the challenges inherent in designing a programming language for an educational purpose.

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“…One of the reasons for this is obviously the fact that, with the exception of advanced spreadsheet users, only a very small percentage of software consumers have ever tried to program an application (be it by macro-recording, parameter configuration, or scripting). Another important reason is that EUP environments are typically plainly uninviting for nonprogrammers, which explains and in a way perpetuates this situation (see Nardi, 1993;Traynor and Williams, 1997).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Semiotic engineering principles for evaluating end-user programming environments

Souza

Barbosa

Silva

2001

Interacting with Computers

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End user programming (EUP) environments are difficult to evaluate empirically. Most users do not engage in programming, and those who do are often discouraged by the complexity of programming tasks. Often the difficulties arise from the programming languages in which users are expected to express themselves. But there are other difficulties associated with designing extensions and adjustments to artifacts that have been originally designed by others. This paper characterizes EUP as a semiotic design process, and presents two principles that can be used to illustrate the distinctions between the various kinds of techniques and approaches proposed in this field. The principles support a preliminary theoretical model of EUP and should thus facilitate the definition and interpretation of empirical evaluation studies. They also define some specific semiotic qualifications that more usable and applicable EUP languages could be expected to have. ᭧

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A study of end-user programming for geographic information systems

Cited by 19 publications

References 4 publications

An approach to mobile collaborative mapping

An approach to mobile collaborative mapping

Learning by Building: A Visual Modelling Language for Psychology Students

Semiotic engineering principles for evaluating end-user programming environments

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