Despite their drawbacks, paper-based questionnaires are still used to collect data in many application domains. In the QuestionSys project, we develop an advanced framework that enables domain experts to transform pap...
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ISBN:
(纸本)9783319595368;9783319595351
Despite their drawbacks, paper-based questionnaires are still used to collect data in many application domains. In the QuestionSys project, we develop an advanced framework that enables domain experts to transform paper-based instruments to mobile data collection applications, which then run on smart mobile devices. The framework empowers domain experts to develop robust mobile data collection applications on their own without the need to involve programmers. To realize this vision, a configurator component applying a model-driven approach is developed. As this component shall relieve domain experts from technical issues, it has to be proven that domain experts are actually able to use the configurator properly. The experiment presented in this paper investigates the mental efforts for creating such data collection applications by comparing novices and experts. Results reveal that even novices are able to model instruments with an acceptable number of errors. Altogether, the QuestionSys framework empowers domain experts to develop sophisticated mobile data collection applications by orders of magnitude faster compared to current mobile application development practices.
The use of end-user programming, such as if-this-then-that (IFTTT), is becoming increasingly common. Services like IFTTT allow users to easily create new functionality by connecting arbitrary Internet of-Things (IoT) ...
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ISBN:
(纸本)9781450349130
The use of end-user programming, such as if-this-then-that (IFTTT), is becoming increasingly common. Services like IFTTT allow users to easily create new functionality by connecting arbitrary Internet of-Things (IoT) devices and online services using simple if-then rules, commonly known as recipes. However, such convenience at times comes at the cost of security and privacy risks for endusers. To gain an in-depth understanding of the potential security and privacy risks, we build an information-flow model to analyze how often IFTTT recipes involve potential integrity or secrecy violations. Our analysis finds that around 50% of the 19,323 unique recipes we examined are potentially unsafe, as they contain a secrecy violation, an integrity violation, or both, We next categorize the types of harm that these potentially unsafe recipes can cause to users. After manually examining a random selection of potentially unsafe recipes, we find that recipes can not only lead to harms such as personal embarrassment but can also be exploited by an attacker, e.g, to distribute malware or carry out denial-of-service attacks. The use of IoT devices and services like IFTTT is expected only to grow in the near future: our analysis suggests users need to be both informed about and protected from these emerging threats to which they could be unwittingly exposing themselves.
Block-based programming languages have become increasingly prominent in both the educational and end-user communities. As the block-based codebase is growing rapidly, its quality remains poorly understood, even though...
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ISBN:
(纸本)9781538604434
Block-based programming languages have become increasingly prominent in both the educational and end-user communities. As the block-based codebase is growing rapidly, its quality remains poorly understood, even though the awareness of recurring quality problems in this domain can benefit educators and end-user programmers alike. To address this problem, we report on the results of a large-scale assessment of recurring quality problems in block-based software. Our work identifies quality problems endemic of block-based software, as well as applies program analysis to assess the prevalence and severity of quality problems in close to 600K representative Scratch projects. Our empirical evidence shows how certain recurring quality problems hinder code sharing for popular Scratch projects. These results indicate that the quality of block-based software warrants the attention of CS educators, end-user programmers, and tool builders. Our study's results can help programmers avoid introducing the quality problems, while guiding tools builders in supporting the systematic quality improvement of block-based software.
In this paper we describe how to use a Game-Based Learning (GBL) approach to help end-user programmers to develop Computational Thinking (CT) skills. CT represents a framework consisting of a set of skills such as: ab...
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ISBN:
(纸本)9781538604434
In this paper we describe how to use a Game-Based Learning (GBL) approach to help end-user programmers to develop Computational Thinking (CT) skills. CT represents a framework consisting of a set of skills such as: abstraction, decomposition and more in general problem solving expressed in a computational form (algorithmic thinking) that can be easily formalised into a computer program. Those skills are beneficial for end-user programmers in order to model a task for being tackled with computational tools, e.g. spreadsheets, domain specific and visual languages. TAPASPlay is an engaging GBL platform designed to help end-user to learn algorithmic thinking.
Many applications are made programmable for advanced end-users by adding facilities such as scripting and macros. Other applications take a programming language to the center stage of its UI. That is the case, for exa...
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Many applications are made programmable for advanced end-users by adding facilities such as scripting and macros. Other applications take a programming language to the center stage of its UI. That is the case, for example, of the spreadsheet formula language. While scripting has benefited from the advances of programming language research, producing mature and reusable languages, the state of UI-level languages lags behind. We claim that a better understanding of such languages is necessary. In this work, we model the semantics of existing end-user programming languages in three different domains: multimedia, spreadsheets and engineering. Our focus is on dataflow languages, a representative paradigm for end-user programmable applications. Based on this analysis, we aim to provide a better understanding of dataflow semantics as used in the context of end-user programming and propose guidelines for the design of UI-level languages for end-user programmable applications.
As computing devices become increasingly ubiquitous, it is now possible to combine the unique capabilities of different devices or Internet of Things to accomplish a task. However, there is currently a high technical ...
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As computing devices become increasingly ubiquitous, it is now possible to combine the unique capabilities of different devices or Internet of Things to accomplish a task. However, there is currently a high technical barrier for creating cross-device interaction. This is especially challenging for endusers who have limited technical expertise-endusers would greatly benefit from custom cross-device interaction that best suits their needs. In this article, we present Improv, a cross-device input framework that allows a user to easily leverage the capability of additional devices to create new input methods for an existing, unmodified application, e.g., creating custom gestures on a smartphone to control a desktop presentation application. Instead of requiring developers to anticipate and program these cross-device behaviors in advance, Improv enables endusers to improvise them on the fly by simple demonstration, for their particular needs and devices at hand. We showcase a range of scenarios where Improv is used to create a diverse set of useful cross-device input. Our study with 14 participants indicated that on average it took a participant 10 seconds to create a cross-device input technique. In addition, Improv achieved 93.7% accuracy in interpreting user demonstration of a target UI behavior by looking at the raw input events from a single example.
Many disciplines, including health science, increasingly demand custom applications that synthesize cloud, mobile and web functionality. But creating even simple apps is difficult. Why? In this paper, guided by Cognit...
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ISBN:
(纸本)9781450333627
Many disciplines, including health science, increasingly demand custom applications that synthesize cloud, mobile and web functionality. But creating even simple apps is difficult. Why? In this paper, guided by Cognitive Dimensions, we explore the design space for relevant programming notations and supporting tools, and we pinpoint what we hypothesize to be specific obstacles in the creation of cloud-mobile-web apps. Among these is the prevalence of hidden dependencies within code of apps. Based on this analysis, we propose a new notation called LondonTube aimed at making these hidden dependencies visible, thereby helping health scientists to create apps for themselves. A study showed that LondonTube reduced the time to create a cloud-mobile-web app by a factor of over 20, and it reduced questions about hidden dependencies.
Computational Thinking has recently returned into the limelight as an essential skill to have for both the general public and disciplines outside Computer Science. It encapsulates those thinking skills integral to sol...
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ISBN:
(纸本)9781509002528
Computational Thinking has recently returned into the limelight as an essential skill to have for both the general public and disciplines outside Computer Science. It encapsulates those thinking skills integral to solving complex problems using a computer, thus widely applicable in our technological society. Several public initiatives such as the Hour of Code successfully introduced it to millions of people of different ages and backgrounds, mostly using Blocks programming Environments like Scratch that lower the barriers of programming and facilitate learning. In this paper we present our arguments for fostering Computational Thinking skills using a Blocks programming Environment augmented with a Tangible user Interface, namely by exploiting objects whose interactions with the physical environment are mapped to digital actions performed on the system. Our demonstration includes a working prototype implementing our Tangible Blocks programming Environment called TAPAS.
While researchers have long investigated end-user programming using a trigger-action (if-then) model, the website IFTTT is among the first instances of this paradigm being used on a large scale. To understand what IFT...
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ISBN:
(纸本)9781450333627
While researchers have long investigated end-user programming using a trigger-action (if-then) model, the website IFTTT is among the first instances of this paradigm being used on a large scale. To understand what IFTTT users are creating, we scraped the 224,590 programs shared publicly on IFTTT as of September 2015 and are releasing this dataset to spur future research. We characterize aspects of these programs and the IFTTT ecosystem over time. We find a large number of users are crafting a diverse set of end-user programs-over 100,000 different users have shared programs. These programs represent a very broad array of connections that appear to fill gaps in functionality, yet users often duplicate others' programs.
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