Tutorials

1. Minimalist Tools for End User Development - Sunday, Sep 26th -- 9.30am-1.30pm
2. The Semiotics of Visual Programming and Program Visualisation - Sunday, Sep 26th -- 3pm-6pm
3. WEBFORMS - CANCELLED

The Department of Computer Science in Via Salaria 113 is reachable from Piazzale Flaminio by taking the 490, 491, or 495 bus bound towards Stazione Tiburtina and asking the driver to get off at Piazza Fiume, or from Termini Station by taking the 38, 360, 217, 86 bus and getting off at Piazza Fiume as well. Local area directions can be found here:
http://w3.uniroma1.it/dipinfo/dipcomerag.asp

Mary Beth Rosson - School of Information Sciences & Technology, Pennsylvania State University
mrosson@psu.edu

Intended Audience: Researchers, developers, and educators interested in tools or training designed to help nonprogrammers use computing technology in more powerful ways. General familiarity with end user programming languages and tools.

Abstract. End users want to get things done, not learn how to program. End users want to build software that solves a problem, not software that is elegant, extensible, or reusable. In some cases end users may not even care whether the software is (exactly!) correct. Combine this starting motivation with a general lack of background in logic, control flow, and algorithms and you face the fundamental challenges of building tools and other support for end user development.

In prior work, we have discussed end users' results-oriented motivation as a production paradox: People are active users; they want to get a task done, to see outcomes, and do not want to delay their progress long enough to learn how to best to succeed (Carroll & Rosson, 1987). We have also described an approach to learning environments and instruction called minimalism (Carroll, 1990). The fundamental premise of minimalism is that we should leverage humans' tendency for active learning, and stay out of the way of natural learning processes as much possible. Explanatory text is reduced as much as possible, meaningful tasks are offered during learning so as to evoke and connect with prior knowledge; errors are anticipated and supported as learning opportunities.

Minimalism is attractive as an approach to end user development tools because it addresses motivation and cognitive issues in concert. In this tutorial I will provide a brief history of minimalism, including several case studies of minimalist design techniques (training wheels, view matcher, guided exploration, scaffolded examples). I will discuss similar approaches for end user programming systems (e.g., surprise-explain-reward, learning by debugging). The tutorial will conclude with an interactive exercise in which attendees sketch out and discuss minimalist designs related to their own research areas.

References

• Carroll, J. M., & Rosson, M. B. 1987. The paradox of the active user. In J.M. Carroll (Ed.), Interfacing Thought: Cognitive Aspects of Human-Computer Interaction. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press (pp. 80-111).
  
• Carroll, J. M. 1990. The Nurnberg Funnel: Designing Minimalist Instruction for Practical Computer Skill. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
  

James Noble - Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand
Robert Biddle - Human-Oriented Technology Laboratory, Carleton University Ottawa, Canada

ABSTRACT
Visual Programming and Program Visualisation depend on graphical presentation of semantic information about software systems. While formal or graphical analytic techniques can describe the evaluation rules and internal logic of a visual language, describing the interpretation of language in the world of a user or programming is much more problematic. Semiotics is the study of signs in society. Developed by Ferdinand de Sassure and Charles Sanders Peirce in the early twentieth century, semiotics provides a well-founded critical vocabulary and a set of structural analysis techniques that addresses the use of all kinds of signs and languages to convey information.

This tutorial will describe how semiotics can assist and illuminate the design of visual programming environments and program visualisation systems. Via case studies and practical examples, this tutorial will teach the basic of semiotics, and assist participants to apply semiotic analyses to their visual programming and program visualisation systems.

Tutorial Objective:
This tutorial introduces participants to the history of structural semiotics, to its basic vocabulary, and to the techniques required apply semiotics to visual programming and program visualisation systems. After attending this tutorial, participants will be able to:

• understand the development of Peircian and structural semiotics
• understand the 'doctrine of the sign' and the primary techniques and vocabulary of semiotics
• apply semiotic analysis to existing visual formalisms
• design new visual languages and program visualisation systems emcompassing semiotic principles and techniques

Attendee Background:
This tutorial targets anyone who is designing, building, or evaluating visual programming or program visualisation systems; or who is planning to teach visual programming or program visualisation as part of a critial university-level course. No background in semiotics is required (or indeed expected).

Presentation Format:
The tutorial balances direct presentations (for overviews and to present each pattern), case studies (to reflect on patterns and see how they can be applied), and groupwork exercise (to practice the semiotic analysis techniques).

Level: Introductory / Intermediate

Length: Half-day

Schedule:

00:00 - 00:10  Introduction & Tutorial Outline
00:10 - 00:30  Peirce, Sassure, Eco - The development of Semiotics
00:30 - 00:50  The Doctrine of the Sign
00:50 - 01:10  Exercise: Semiotic analysis of UI Icons
01:10 - 01:30  Case Study: Semiotics of LabView



01:30 - 01:50  Connotative Semiotics
01:50 - 02:10  Case Study: Semiotics of Software Visualisation
02:10 - 02:30  Exercise: Metaphor, Metonymy, Myth
02:30 - 02:50  Discussion: Semiotics Applications in VL Research
02:50 - 03:00  Tutorial Evaluation; Wrap-up

Materials Provided:

• Copies of Powerpoint presentation (approx 100 slides)
• Copies of Case Studies and Exercise Solutions (approx 20 pages)
• Preprints of chapters of forthcoming book (50 pages)

Primary Category: Visual Programming, Program Visualisation
Other Categories: Analysis, Education

Maximum Participants: 30

Brief Presenter Biographies:

James Noble is Professor of Software Engineering at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. He has extensive experience lecturing, teaching, and mentoring with software design, software visualisation, user interface design, and design patterns --- and many other topics.

Robert Biddle is Professor of Human-Computer Interaction at the Human-Oriented Technology Laboratory, Carleton University Ottawa, Canada. His two main research areas are Human-Computer Interaction and Software Engineering. His work in HCI concerns information visualisation, especially in the contexts of programming and education, while his work in Software Engineering concerns object-oriented analysis and design.

Emanuele Panizzi - Dipartimento di Informatica, Università di Roma "La Sapienza", Italy
panizzi@di.uniroma1.it

This tutorial is about the design and development of web forms, a problem more and more common in most web sites. In fact, forms are used on web sites for polls, questionnaires, dialogs, login operations, email preparation and sending, forums and news posting, file uploads. Web forms span from one-field-one-button up to very long questionnaires organized as multiple-page forms.

The tutorial will cover this topic integrating two main points of view. On one hand, the conceptual aspects related to the different uses of forms, to their appropriateness, to the human-centered form design and the usability issues, to the analysis of results. On the other hand it will focus on the available web technology, the languages, the data management, the tools for rapid form prototyping. These two aspects will be mixed during the 2.5 hours of the tutorial in order to indicate a possible methodology to design, develop and deploy human-centric web forms.

Here is a list of the covered topics:

• criteria for questionnaire design
• form design and organization
• form layout, sections, items and their format
• usability of forms
• measurement and bias
• html form elements and syntax
• form submission and server-side processing
• server side form validation
• database organization
• client side form validation
• access to collected data
• rapid form prototyping
• tools
• XForms

The tutorial will be interactive and hands-on. Attendees will design and develop exercise forms, work in groups, and discuss alternative solutions.

The tutorial is addressed to any person interested in the design and development of web forms either for research, or development or communication purposes.

The intended audience include, but is not limited to, HCI researchers who need to design user experience questionnaires, software engineers who design and build web-based interactive systems, web site developers, teachers that need to deploy web-based assessment tests, communication experts designing web site interaction.

Emanuele Panizzi, 38, electronic engineer, is a computer science ricercatore (assistant professor) at the University "La Sapienza" of Rome, Italy. His research in human computer interaction is focused on usability, and he is currently tackling usability issues in the different contexts of elearning, mobile interfaces for driver assistance in the car, digital libraries, and the usability test process itself, integrating studies and analyses with system development and field test. His previous research, carried on in the 90s, was the design of architecture and base software of high performance parallel computers. This gives a strong technological grounding for his current research, and an engineering oriented approach.