Supporting end-user debugging : what do users want to know?

Although researchers have begun to explicitly support end-user programmers' debugging by providing information to help them find bugs, there is little research addressing the right content to communicate to these users. The specific semantic content of these debugging communications matters because, if the users are not actually seeking the information the system is providing, they are not likely to attend to it. This paper reports a formative empirical study that sheds light on what end users actually want to know in the course of debugging a spreadsheet, given the avail-ability of a set of interactive visual testing and debugging features. Our results provide insights into end-user debuggers' in-formation gaps, and further suggest opportunities to improve end-user debugging systems' support for the things end-user debuggers actually want to know.Keywords: end-user programming, online help, end-user development, end-user debugging, User Interfaces, Office Automation—Spreadsheets, User/Machine Systems—Software psychology, Testing and Debugging-Debugging Aids, Programming Environments-Interactive environments, End-user software engineering, Visual programmin

Sensing and indicating interruptibility in office workplaces

In office workplaces, interruptions by co-workers, emails or instant messages are common. Many of these interruptions are useful as they might help resolve questions quickly and increase the productivity of the team. However, knowledge workers interrupted at inopportune moments experience longer task resumption times, lower overall performance, more negative emotions, and make more errors than if they were to be interrupted at more appropriate moments. To reduce the cost of interruptions, several approaches have been suggested, ranging from simply closing office doors to automatically measuring and indicating a knowledge worker’s interruptibility - the availability for interruptions - to co-workers. When it comes to computer-based interruptions, such as emails and instant messages, several studies have shown that they can be deferred to automatically detected breakpoints during task execution, which reduces their interruption cost. For in-person interruptions, one of the most disruptive and time-consuming types of interruptions in office workplaces, the predominant approaches are still manual strategies to physically indicate interruptibility, such as wearing headphones or using manual busy lights. However, manual approaches are cumbersome to maintain and thus are not updated regularly, which reduces their usefulness. To automate the measurement and indication of interruptibility, researchers have looked at a variety of data that can be leveraged, ranging from contextual data, such as audio and video streams, keyboard and mouse interaction data, or task characteristics all the way to biometric data, such as heart rate data or eye traces. While studies have shown promise for the use of such sensors, they were predominantly conducted on small and controlled tasks over short periods of time and mostly limited to either contextual or biometric sensors. Little is known about their accuracy and applicability for long-term usage in the field, in particular in office workplaces. In this work, we developed an approach to automatically measure interruptibility in office workplaces, using computer interaction sensors, which is one type of contextual sensors, and biometric sensors. In particular, we conducted one lab and two field studies with a total of 33 software developers. Using the collected computer interaction and biometric data, we used machine learning to train interruptibility models. Overall, the results of our studies show that we can automatically predict interruptibility with high accuracy of 75.3%, improving on a baseline majority classifier by 26.6%. An automatic measure of interruptibility can consequently be used to indicate the status to others, allowing them to make a well-informed decision on when to interrupt. While there are some automatic approaches to indicate interruptibility on a computer in the form of contact list applications, they do not help to reduce in-person interruptions. Only very few researchers combined the benefits of an automatic measurement with a physical indicator, but their effect in office workplaces over longer periods of time is unknown. In our research, we developed the FlowLight, an automatic interruptibility indicator in the form of a traffic-light like LED placed on a knowledge worker's desk. We evaluated the FlowLight in a large-scale field study with 449 participants from 12 countries. The evaluation revealed that after the introduction of the FlowLight, the number of in-person interruptions decreased by 46% (based on 36 interruption logs), the awareness on the potential harm of interruptions was elevated and participants felt more productive (based on 183 survey responses and 23 interview transcripts), and 86% remained active users even after the two-month study period ended (based on 449 online usage logs). Overall, our research shows that we can successfully reduce in-person interruption cost in office workplaces by sensing and indicating interruptibility. In addition, our research can be extended and opens up new opportunities to further support interruption management, for example, by the integration of other more accurate biometric sensors to improve the interruptibility model, or the use of the model to reduce self-interruptions

Supporting end-user debugging

Although researchers have begun to explicitly support end-user programmers’ debugging by providing information to help them find bugs, there is little research addressing the right content to communicate to these users. The specific semantic content of these debugging communications matters because, if the users are not actually seeking the information the system is providing, they are not likely to attend to it. This thesis reports a formative empirical study that sheds light on what end users actually want to know in the course of debugging a spreadsheet, given the availability of a set of interactive visual testing and debugging features. Our results provide insights into end-user debuggers’ information gaps, and further suggest opportunities to improve end-user debugging systems’ support for the things end-user debuggers actually want to know. Following up on those suggestions, we then present the design and implementation of a solution aimed at helping to close some of those information gaps

Artistic research into distraction, agency, and the internet

This practical study is concerned with flows of attention and distraction that are associated with experiences of the internet. Taking the term ‘internet’ to stand for a range of networked social, media-consumption, and data practices carried out on devices such as smartphones, this study sets out to explore how distraction might arise, how it might be conceptualised, and the potential consequences for agency of the conditions of its emergence. The study is led by the production and analysis of artworks, using practical approaches that engage critically with aspects of the experience of the internet. This thesis begins by exploring conceptions of the ‘attention economy’ articulated by Goldhaber (1997), Beller (2006), and Citton (2017), developing an understanding that counters mainstream deterministic positions regarding the impact of digital technologies on the capacity for focused attention. Distraction is considered as an experience that may be sought out by individuals but can be captured and extended by third parties such as social media platforms. The importance of the data generated by habitual or compulsive engagement with internet-enabled devices and services (Zuboff, 2015) is considered against a backdrop of quantification and managerialism that extends beyond experiences of the internet. The study reviews existing artworks made in response to these concerns, focusing on expressions of the ‘attention economy’ prevalent in ‘postinternet’ art. Works by Vierkant (2010), Roth (2015) and others that interrogate infrastructure, data-gathering, or networked methods of distribution are identified as relevant, and a position is developed from which the consequences of metricised display platforms for an artistic ‘attention economy’ can be explored. Prototype artworks made during the study are appraised using an artistic research methodology that foregrounds the role of the researcher as both producer and reader of the artwork. Works that actively create distraction, that gather and visualise data, and that emphasise calm self-interrogation, are discussed and evaluated. The practical aspects of the research contribute to knowledge by extending understanding of the spatial, infrastructural, and algorithmic dimensions of the relationship between distraction and agency

Early aspects: aspect-oriented requirements engineering and architecture design

This paper reports on the third Early Aspects: Aspect-Oriented Requirements Engineering and Architecture Design Workshop, which has been held in Lancaster, UK, on March 21, 2004. The workshop included a presentation session and working sessions in which the particular topics on early aspects were discussed. The primary goal of the workshop was to focus on challenges to defining methodical software development processes for aspects from early on in the software life cycle and explore the potential of proposed methods and techniques to scale up to industrial applications

Explaining variations in the local implementation of a national policy : inclusive education in four Beijing schools.

The problem this study addresses is the gap between tracking—grouping students by ability, a practice that stems, in part, from a prevailing meritocratic ideology—and inclusive education—grouping students heterogeneously, a practice that the central government has adopted as official policy. The goals of this study are to (1) discover attitudes, strategies, tactics, and other behavior (embraced or engaged in by school principals, teachers, and other actors) that support and inhibit the government\u27s policy of dismantling the tracking structure, and (2) to explore their causes and consequences. The literature review begins with a discussion of how meritocracy and a tracking system were successfully institutionalized in China and why they are in trouble today, mainly from the perspective of ideological change in China. The second section of this review summarizes the effects of tracking system on students\u27 academic achievement and personal and social development, and explores the complex interaction between tracking, meritocracy, and social inequality. The last section discusses existing policy implementation theories, especially the institutional perspective. Based on the policy processes in China, this dissertation proposes an analytical framework for a centralized system. The primary data collection method is interviewing, supported by reviewing documents and observing. Data analysis is guided by procedures that have been developed to create grounded theory. The data analysis is divided into five main sections. The first section describes the policy settings, including the state context, an overview of basic education in Beijing, the general school context, policy mandates, and theory of action. The second section presents a panorama of the teachers\u27 reflections on the implementation process of the detracking policy. The third section draws on data from principal interviews, observation, and reflection logs to present coherent implementation stories for the four schools. The fourth section constructs categories of cross-case analysis and reports on dimensions of attitudes and beliefs, instructional and pedagogical practices for implementing inclusive education programs. The final section provides a summary that reflects upon my research questions and general interpretations of the interviewees\u27 responses. Using causal links among the existing categories, the dissertation study discusses different implementation instruments and outcomes—specifically, pathfinding, selective compliance, skeptical and reluctant compliance, and resisting. In conclusion, this study provides recommendations for the improvement of policy process from the political, cultural and technical perspectives

The application of multiple modalities to improve home care and reminder systems

Existing home care technology tends to be pre-programmed systems limited to one or two interaction modalities. This can make them inaccessible to people with sensory impairments and unable to cope with a dynamic and heterogeneous environment such as the home. This thesis presents research that considers how home care technology can be improved through employing multiple visual, aural, tactile and even olfactory interaction methods. A wide range of modalities were tested to gather a better insight into their properties and merits. That information was used to design and construct Dyna-Cue, a prototype multimodal reminder system. Dyna-Cue was designed to use multiple modalities and to switch between them in real time to maintain higher levels of effectiveness and acceptability. The Dyna-Cue prototype was evaluated against other models of reminder delivery and was shown to be an effective and appropriate tool that can help people to manage their time and activities