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

Cory Kissinger, Margaret Burnett, Simone Stumpf, Neeraja Subrahmaniyan, Laura Beckwith, Sherry Yang, Mary Beth Rosson

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contribution

28 Scopus citations

Abstract

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 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.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Title of host publicationProceedings of the AVI '06 - Working Conference on Advanced Visual Interfaces 2006
Pages135-142
Number of pages8
DOIs
StatePublished - 2006
EventAVI '06 - Working Conference on Advanced Visual Interfaces 2006 - Venezia, Italy
Duration: May 23 2006May 26 2006

Publication series

NameProceedings of the Workshop on Advanced Visual Interfaces
Volume2006

Other

OtherAVI '06 - Working Conference on Advanced Visual Interfaces 2006
Country/TerritoryItaly
CityVenezia
Period5/23/065/26/06

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • General Computer Science

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