Using HCI techniques to design a more usable programming system

Pane, John F.; Myers, Brad A.; Miller, Laura

doi:10.1109/hcc.2002.1046372

Cited by 64 publications

(46 citation statements)

References 17 publications

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“…The principles of HCI frame general discussions on the design of pedagogic programming languages [27], as well as on the design of error messages specifically [33]. These reflections informed our work.…”

Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 97%

Measuring the effectiveness of error messages designed for novice programmers

Marceau

Fisler

Krishnamurthi

2011

Proceedings of the 42nd ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education

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Good error messages are critical for novice programmers. Many projects attempt to rewrite expert-level error messages in terms suitable for novices. DrScheme's language levels provide a powerful alternative through which error messages are customized to pedagogically-inspired language subsets. Despite this, many novices still struggle to work effectively with DrScheme's error messages. To better understand why, we have begun using human-factors research methods to explore the effectiveness of DrScheme's error messages. Unlike existing work in this area, we study messages at a fine-grained level by analyzing the edits students make in response to various classes of errors. Our results point to several shortcomings in DrScheme's current treatment of errors; many of these should apply to other languages. This paper describes our methodology, presents initial findings, and recommends new approaches to presenting errors to novices.

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Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 97%

Measuring the effectiveness of error messages designed for novice programmers

Marceau

Fisler

Krishnamurthi

2011

Proceedings of the 42nd ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education

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“…These concepts are then used as "natural" building blocks for new systems. The Natural Programming methodology [17] which investigates users' existing approaches to complete a task and ways of organising information by observing without influencing them about how the task should be done -has been used to design programming languages and systems, including interfaces that adapt themselves to user preferences [10]. We employed the Natural Programming methodology to understand what matters to end users in music playlists to inform future system design which encourages user involvement.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

When users generate music playlists: When words leave off, music begins?

Stumpf

Muscroft

2011

2011 IEEE International Conference on Multimedia and Expo

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Music systems that generate playlists are gaining increasing popularity, yet ways to select songs to be acceptable to users is still elusive. We present the results of an explorative study that focused on the language of musically untrained end users for playlist choices, in a variety of listening contexts. Our results indicate that there are a number of opportunities for playlist recommendation or retrieval systems, particularly by taking context into account.

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“…A few researchers have followed an approach in which empirical studies were conducted before the main design, testing specific experimental hypotheses rather than general measures of utility. Examples of this approach include the Hands language [PMM02] and SWYN [Bla01]. The similarity to our work is philosophical -in their work and ours, the emphasis is on the human from the very outset of the design process.…”

Section: Other Usability Techniquesmentioning

confidence: 94%

A user-centred approach to functions in Excel

2003

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We describe extensions to the Excel spreadsheet that integrate userdefined functions into the spreadsheet grid, rather than treating them as a "bolt-on". Our first objective was to bring the benefits of additional programming language features to a system that is often not recognised as a programming language. Second, in a project involving the evolution of a well-established language, compatibility with previous versions is a major issue, and maintaining this compatibility was our second objective. Third and most important, the commercial success of spreadsheets is largely due to the fact that many people find them more usable than programming languages for programming-like tasks. Thus, our third objective (with resulting constraints) was to maintain this usability advantage.Simply making Excel more like a conventional programming language would not meet these objectives and constraints. We have therefore taken an approach to our design work that emphasises the cognitive requirements of the user as a primary design criterion. The analytic approach that we demonstrate in this project is based on recent developments in the study of programming usability, including the Cognitive Dimensions of Notations and the Attention Investment model of abstraction use. We believe that this approach is also applicable to the design and extension of other programming languages and environments.

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Using HCI techniques to design a more usable programming system

Abstract: Abstract

Cited by 64 publications

References 17 publications

Measuring the effectiveness of error messages designed for novice programmers

Measuring the effectiveness of error messages designed for novice programmers

When users generate music playlists: When words leave off, music begins?

A user-centred approach to functions in Excel

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