1,004 research outputs found

    A Usability Evaluation Framework for

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    Currently, more than two billions people access the Web for various purposes. The majority are people without programming or modelling background. Part of these people (called end-users) also likes to create their own Web applications to meet their daily needs. Mashup Makers are tools to create such end-user’s Web applications. As such, Mashup Makers could become the dominant environment for end-user development of Web applications. Existing Mashup Makers promise that creating a Web Mashup is very easy and just a matter of a few mouse clicks. However, there is no evidence that this is indeed the case. On the contrary, research has already revealed usability problems with Mashup Makers. Therefore, this thesis concentrates on the usability of Mashup Makers as development environments for Web applications for end-users. Usability is a key issue for the success of software artifacts, and especially if the artifacts are intended for non-technical users. Therefore, we target the achievement of a consolidated approach, model, and framework for the evaluation of the usability of Mashup Makers for end-users. Such a framework will not only allow evaluating the usability of existing Mashup Makers, but it will also provide key issues concerning usability (ie usability impact factors) that developers of Mashup Makers and of other future end-user development tools can take into consideration when developing new tools

    Usability issues and design principles for visual programming languages

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    This thesis was submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and awarded by Brunel University.Despite two decades of empirical studies focusing on programmers and the problems with programming, usability of textual programming languages is still hard to achieve. Its younger relation, visual programming languages (VPLs) also share the same problem of poor usability. This research explores and investigates the usability issues relating to VPLs in order to suggest a set of design principles that emphasise usability. The approach adopted focuses on issues arising from the interaction and communication between the human (programmers), the computer (user interface), and the program. Being exploratory in nature, this PhD reviews the literature as a starting point for stimulating and developing research questions and hypotheses that experimental studies were conducted to investigate. However, the literature alone cannot provide a fully comprehensive list of possible usability problems in VPLs so that design principles can be confidently recommended. A commercial VPL was, therefore, holistically evaluated and a comprehensive list of usability problems was obtained from the research. Six empirical studies employing both quantitative and qualitative methodology were undertaken as dictated by the nature of the research. Five of these were controlled experiments and one was qualitative-naturalistic. The experiments studied the effect of a programming paradigm and of representation of program flow on novices' performances. The results indicated superiority of control-flow programs in relation to data-flow programs; a control-flow preference among novices; and in addition that directional representation does not affect performance while traversal direction does - due to cognitive demands imposed upon programmers. Results of the qualitative study included a list of 145 usability problems and these were further categorised into ten problem areas. These findings were integrated with other analytical work based upon the review of the literature in a structured fashion to form a checklist and a set of design principles for VPLs that are empirically grounded and evaluated against existing research in the literature. Furthermore, an extended framework for Cognitive Dimensions of Notations is also discussed and proposed as an evaluation method for diagrammatic VPLs on the basis of the qualitative study. The above consists of the major findings and deliverables of this research. Nevertheless, there are several other findings identified on the basis of the substantial amount of data obtained in the series of experiments carried out, which have made a novel contribution to knowledge in the fields of Human-Computer Interaction, Psychology of Programming, and Visual Programming Languages

    Giving Four-Year-Old Children a Voice Within the Comprehensive Evaluation of Quality Teaching Practices

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    Educational research has largely focused on the correlation between governmental entities and classroom pedagogy as policymakers develop more comprehensive evaluation systems that raise the expectations of teacher quality. However, some researchers in the field of early childhood suggest the measurement of teacher quality is largely a “mismatch between informant-based, retroactive methods” (Downer, Booren, Lima, Luckner, & Pianta, 2010, p. 5) as developmentally appropriate measurements of early childhood quality that include the perceptions of the children are few. To examine the potential for researchers to consider the inclusion of children’s perceptions within evaluation systems, this study examines the following area of inquiry: (1) What kind of verbal and visual information is provided by four-year-old children within interviews, story stems, and drawing activities that describe their classroom teacher and the teacher’s classroom practices; and (2) How does what children shared relate to the ECERS-R Interaction dimension. This qualitative study sought to understand how children express their perceptions of their classroom teacher and the teacher’s classroom practices. Data was collected using three measures: (1) verbal interviews; (2) story stem interviews; and (3) drawing activities. Transcribed data was coded and categorized, in which four themes, 11 sub-themes, and four main findings emerged. These themes, sub-themes, and findings suggest four-year-old children are able to share information including emotional experiences within the classroom, classroom procedures, the teacher’s behaviors during free play, and interactions that occur with the teacher and peers. Findings also suggest an alignment of children’s descriptions to the ECERS-R Interaction domain, supporting the consideration of young children’s perceptions within formal evaluation systems

    An Art Educators\u27 Perception of an Art Professional Development Workshop

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    There are no guidelines in South Carolina for developing workshops that reflect the needs of art educators, and there are no tools to evaluate and support their professional development. The problem is a lack of informative, substantive, and academically oriented art inservices that are standards-based and focused on the enhancement of pedagogy, teaching strategies, and content. The purpose of this case study was to explore participants\u27 perceptions of an art professional development workshop as an approach to examining art standards, instructional strategies, and policy changes. Dewey\u27s experiential theory served as the conceptual framework. A purposeful sample of 10 art educators who attended a district-sponsored professional development workshop participated in this study. After the workshop, data about educators\u27 perceptions of the inservice were collected through a beta test and a focus group with 2 participants, 1 open-ended questionnaire with 8 participants, and a workshop observation with 20 participants. Data were analyzed using comparative analysis to identify patterns in the data. Member checking and triangulation were used to verify the data and control bias. Five themes emerged from the data: adult-centered hands-on learning, professional development experiences, grants, collaboration and networking, and best practices. This study contributes to social change by showing the importance of on-going adult-centered, research-based, hands-on professional development for educators addressing visual art standards, practice, instructional strategies, policy changes, and the facilitation of student-centered activities

    A framework for improving the verifiability of visual notation design grounded in the physics of notations

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    A Systematic Literature Review of Applications of the Physics of Notation

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    What practitioners really want:requirements for visual notations in conceptual modeling

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    This research was aimed at eliciting the requirements of practitioners who use conceptual modeling in their professional work for the visual notations of modeling languages. While the use of conceptual modeling in practice has been addressed, what practitioners in fact require of the visual notation of the modeling languages they use has received little attention. This work was thus motivated by the need to understand to what extent practitioners’ requirements are acknowledged and accommodated by visual notation research efforts. A mixed-method study was conducted, with a survey being offered over the course of several months to LinkedIn professional groups. The requirements included in the survey were based on a leading design theory for visual notations, the Physics of Notations. After preprocessing, 104 participant responses were analyzed. Data analysis included descriptive coding and qualitative analysis of purposes for modeling and additional requirements beyond the scope of visual design. Statistical and factorial analysis was used to explore potential correlations between the importance of different requirements as perceived by practitioners and the demographic factors (e.g., domain, purpose, topics). The results indicate several correlations between demographic factors and the perceived importance of visual notation requirements, as well as differences in the perceived relative importance of different requirements for models used to communicate with modeling experts as compared to non-experts. Furthermore, the results show an evolution from trends identified in studies conducted in the previous decade. The identified correlations with practitioners’ demographics reveal several research challenges that should be addressed, as well as the potential benefits of more purpose-specific tailoring of visual notation design. Furthermore, the shift in practitioner demographics as compared to those found in earlier work indicates that the research and development of conceptual modeling efforts needs to stay up-to-date with the way practitioners employ conceptual modeling
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