Supporting Tailorable Program Visualisation Through Literate Programming and Fisheye Views

This paper describes the "Jaba" programming environment which allows users to tailor the level of abstraction at which they visualise, browse, edit and document object-oriented programs. Its design draws on concepts from literate programming, holophrasting displays, fisheye visualisation and hypertext to allow programmers to rapidly move between abstract and detailed views of Java classes. The integration of these four techniques provides a synergy at the interface that, we argue, is unavailable in current commercial systems

SUIT: a methodology and framework for Selection of User Interface development Tools

This thesis describes the findings of an industrial survey that identified the context of use for software development projects. This context of use is parameterised and combined with a categorisation of UIDT functionality to produce an extensible and tailorable reference model or framework for UIDT evaluation and selection. An accompanying methodology - which together with the framework is known as SUIT (Selection of User Interface Development Tools) - guides the use of the framework such that project-specific context of use can be modelled and thereafter systematically considered during UIDT selection. This thesis proposes that such focussed and documented consideration of context of use during UIDT selection increases the quality of a selection decision and therefore facilitates reuse of UIDT evaluation and selection results. An evaluative study is described which demonstrates the effectiveness and viability of the SUIT framework and methodology as a paper-based UIDT evaluation facility. The same study also identifies the need for a computer-based tool to support the management of UIDT evaluation data and to assist its comparison and analysis. Experiences with this study, the results of the industrial study, and the structure of the framework and methodology provided input into a set of requirements for a computer-based visualisation environment that supports the comparison and analysis of UIDT data. The SUIT data visualisation environment and its qualitative evaluation are described. The evaluation results identify the usefulness and practicability of the SUIT approach when supported by the visualisation environment. They also suggest a number of refinements and extensions to the tool. The results provide an initial corpus of knowledge regarding practical strategies used by evaluators to compare and analyse UIDT evaluation data. These strategies are modelled using a novel purpose-built graphical notation that focuses on sequencing, flexibility, and patterns of activity

The evaluation of a pedagogical-program development environment for Novice programmers : a comparative study

It is an acknowledged fact that many novice programmers experience difficulty in the process of learning to program. One of the contributing factors to this difficulty is the Program Development Environment (PDE). Professional-PDEs are those developed specifically for professional programmers, but are often used by educational institutions in the instruction of programming. It has long been accepted that such environments are inappropriate in the instruction of programming due to unnecessary complexity and lack of support for novice programmers in the learning process. Numerous pedagogical-PDEs supporting the mechanics of programming have been developed in response to this. A review of literature, however, indicates that very limited empirical studies comparing pedagogical-PDEs and professional-PDEs have been conducted. The current study investigates whether there are measurable benefits to using a pedagogical-PDE supporting the mechanics of programming in the instruction of programming instead of a professional-PDE. A comparative study of this nature requires a representative pedagogical-PDE and representative professional-PDE be compared with one another. The first part of the current study determines a set of requirements that a pedagogical- PDE should adhere to based on literature. A set of representative features for a pedagogical-PDE is derived by examining the features of existing PDEs in conjunction with the set of requirements. Based on these features, a pedagogical-PDE, known as SimplifIDE, is developed that implements the representative set of features and that meets are the requirements for a pedagogical-PDE. The second part of the current study is the specification and administration of an empirical experiment in which SimplifIDE and Borland© DelphiTM are compared with one another. A holistic approach in determining the differences between the PDEs is taken and three main areas are examined, namely academic performance, perceptions and programming behavior

Easing the writing task: designing computer based systems to help authors

An increasing number of people interact not only with computers, but through computers. Interaction between people through computers to complete work tasks is termed Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW). The scope of activities supported by CSCW systems is described, and CSCW systems which support communication, meetings and writing are discussed. More specifically, the potential for improved computer support of the writing task is investigated. It is concluded that models of the writing task and writers are not yet sufficiently accurate to be embedded in normative computer programs or systems; individual writers and writing tasks are extremely varied. Leading on from the studies of both existing systems and writing theories, requirements for generic CSCW systems, single author support systems and multiple author support systems are presented. The design of CSCW systems which support asynchronous collaborative authoring of structured documents is investigated in this thesis. A novel approach to design and implementation of such systems is described and discussed. This thesis then describes MILO, a system that does not feature embedded models of writers or the writing task. In fact, MILO attempts to minimize constraints on the activities of collaborating authors and on the structure of documents. Hence with MILO, roles of participants are determined by social processes, and the presentational structure of documents is imposed at the end of the writing process. It is argued that this approach results in a workable, practical and useful design, substantiating the view that 'minimally-constrained' CSCW systems, of which MILO is an example, will be successful. It is shown that MILO successfully meets the stated requirements, and that it compares favourably with existing collaborative writing systems along several dimensions. The limitations of work presented in the thesis are discussed, leading to suggestions for future work which will remedy deficiencies and extend the work which has been undertaken. The nature of this thesis's contribution to CSCW in general, computer supported collaborative writing, and Human Computer Interaction (HCI) is discussed