End-User Development

Frontmatter

Challenges of Traditional Usability Evaluation in End-User Development

Abstract

End-user development (EUD) research has yielded a variety of novel environments and techniques, often accompanied by lab-based usability studies that test their effectiveness in the completion of representative real-world tasks. While lab studies play an important role in resolving frustrations and demonstrating the potential of novel tools, they are insufficient to accurately determine the acceptance of a technology in its intended context of use, which is highly dependent on the diverse and dynamic requirements of its users, as we show here. As such, usability in the lab is unlikely to represent usability in the field. To demonstrate this, we first describe the results of a think-aloud usability study of our EUD tool “Jeeves”, followed by two case studies where Jeeves was used by psychologists in their work practices. Common issues in the artificial setting were seldom encountered in the real context of use, which instead unearthed new usability issues through unanticipated user needs. We conclude with considerations for usability evaluation of EUD tools that enable development of software for other users, including planning for collaborative activities, supporting developers to evaluate their own tools, and incorporating longitudinal methods of evaluation.

Daniel Rough, Aaron Quigley

My IoT Puzzle: Debugging IF-THEN Rules Through the Jigsaw Metaphor

Abstract

End users can nowadays define applications in the format of IF-THEN rules to personalize their IoT devices and online services. Along with the possibility to compose such applications, however, comes the need to debug them, e.g., to avoid unpredictable and dangerous behaviors. In this context, different questions are still unexplored: which visual languages are more appropriate for debugging IF-THEN rules? Which information do end users need to understand, identify, and correct errors? To answer these questions, we first conducted a literature analysis by reviewing previous works on end-user debugging, with the aim of extracting design guidelines. Then, we developed My IoT Puzzle, a tool to compose and debug IF-THEN rules based on the Jigsaw metaphor. My IoT Puzzle interactively assists users in the debugging process with different real-time feedback, and it allows the resolution of conflicts by providing textual and graphical explanations. An exploratory study with 6 participants preliminary confirms the effectiveness of our approach, showing that the usage of the Jigsaw metaphor, along with real-time feedback and explanations, helps users understand and fix conflicts among IF-THEN rules.

Fulvio Corno, Luigi De Russis, Alberto Monge Roffarello

End-User Development of Voice User Interfaces Based on Web Content

Abstract

Voice Assistants, and particularly the latest gadgets called smart speakers, allow end users to interact with applications by means of voice commands. As usual, end users are able to install applications (also called skills) that are available in repositories and fulfill multiple purposes. In this work we present an end-user environment to define skills for voice assistants based on the extraction of Web content and their organization into different voice navigation patterns. We describe the approach, the end-user development environment, and finally we present some case studies based on Alexa and Amazon Echo.

Gonzalo Ripa, Manuel Torre, Sergio Firmenich, Gustavo Rossi

CAPIRCI: A Multi-modal System for Collaborative Robot Programming

Abstract

This paper presents CAPIRCI (Chat And Program Industrial Robots through Convenient Interaction), a multi-modal web application supporting end users, with no expertise in computer science, to define and modify tasks to be executed by collaborative robots. The application provides two interaction modalities, the former based on a chat interface, the latter presenting a visual programming language inspired to block-based solutions but tailored to the domain at hand. In order to investigate how different kinds of users may accept and use CAPIRCI, a user study with 20 participants has been carried out. Participants were equally split in expert programmers and non-expert programmers; execution times do not show any significant differences between the two groups, while qualitative data collected through direct observation and interviews provide useful hints and suggestions for system refinement.

Sara Beschi, Daniela Fogli, Fabio Tampalini

Intervention and EUD

A Combination for Appropriating Automated Processes

Abstract

Intervention is a new concept for human-computer interaction to help users to cope with the increasing complexity of automated processes in socio-technical settings. We relate the paradigms of End-User Development with it and show the differences, commonalities and emergent areas through a theoretical analysis of a smart home setting. Implications for the design of intervention user interfaces are derived and the interplay of interventions with and their support of End-User Development is shown.

Thomas Herrmann, Christopher Lentzsch, Martin Degeling

Facilitating the Development of IoT Applications in Smart City Platforms

Abstract

In smart city domain, several IoT platforms exist for supporting city managers and operators in controlling and managing events occurring in the city and making decisions to improve citizens’ quality of life. In such systems, for the combination of heterogonous events operators have to manually face the interoperability barriers that arise when dealing with IoT devices belonging to cross-domain IoT platforms. This paper focuses on how to provide city operators with visual and easy-to-use strategies for developing IoT applications that need to access and integrate data originated by various devices spread through a city that communicate according to different communication protocols, event formats, structures and sometimes meaning. The purpose of these strategies is to reduce the time required for the development of IoT applications and the number of mistakes in the configuration of the IoT devices. In details, we propose a solution developed in Node-RED, a visual programming tool for wiring together sensors, actuators and services. Our contribution aims at presenting a solution specifically tailored for domain experts who need to develop different kinds of analysis on city data who are not computer experts, but experts in monitoring weather, traffic, or events that happen in the city. A usability analysis is finally reported in order to assess the design strategies that we have developed.

Stefano Valtolina, Fatmeh Hachem, Barbara Rita Barricelli, Elefelious Getachew Belay, Sara Bonfitto, Marco Mesiti

Analyzing Trigger-Action Programming for Personalization of Robot Behaviour in IoT Environments

Abstract

The rising spread of humanoid robots in various settings of human life, and their increasing affordability, as well as the massive adoption of the Internet of Things (IoT) in various scenarios have made End User Development (EUD) for robotic and IoT applications an interesting research direction. In particular, in the EUD field, trigger-action rules have become popular for their simple structure, which enables users to create rules to implement their desired personalization. Such rules can be a precious source of information for various goals: understanding the aspects people are most interested in, the types of routines they would like to have, the kind of support/automation they would expect from the robot, and the environment in which the robot is immersed. However, since the number of rules that could be generated using such EUD tools could be significant, manual analysis of rules does not seem a viable solution. In this paper we discuss how a visual analytics tool supporting filtering, exploration and analysis of data generated by a EUD tool for programming humanoid robots immersed in IoT environments can be helpful for deriving relevant information associated with the personalization that users express through rules. The analysis can provide designers and developers of EUD tools and associated customizable applications with useful insights for improving the tools and the robotic applications themselves, and facilitate their adoption.

Marco Manca, Fabio Paternò, Carmen Santoro

Cuscus: An End User Programming Tool for Data Visualisation

Abstract

We present Cuscus, a tool for data visualisation that is informed by ethnographic fieldwork across different professional sectors. Cuscus allows end-users to create novel visualisations by defining visual properties in a spreadsheet. We also report on user studies in the contexts of data journalism and business analytics, and discuss further extensions to this new interaction paradigm.

Mariana Marasoiu, Detlef Nauck, Alan F. Blackwell

A Board-Game for Co-Designing Smart Nature Environments in Workshops with Children

Abstract

In recent years, the Human Computer Interaction community has increasingly engaged children in the design process of technology for them as co-designers, and recently as protagonists in co-design. It has also recognised the need of “bringing children back to nature”. This paper combines both lines of research, giving children the role of protagonist co-designers of smart nature ecosystems. In order to engage children as co-designers, the research reported in this paper has employed a playful solution: a board game for children for co-designing smart interactive objects for outdoors nature ecosystems. This paper illustrates the genesis and recent evolution of the board-game in two workshops with children of different ages and gender. Its conclusions draw lessons for involving children as protagonist co-designers of smart nature ecosystems.

Rosella Gennari, Maristella Matera, Alessandra Melonio, Eftychia Roumelioti

An Internet-of-Things End-User Development Approach to Environmental Monitoring of Cultural Heritage Archives

Abstract

End-user development (EUD) seeks to facilitate the extension and customization of systems during use, with increasing possibilities and complexities as the Internet-of-Things (IoT) computing paradigm becomes widespread. One domain that stands to benefit from adopting such an approach is that of environmental monitoring in cultural heritage archives. Monitoring environmental conditions in cultural heritage organizations is vitally important to ensure effective preservation of archives, though existing systems tend to be costly and/or limited in functionality. This research explores archivists’ need for end-user development features in their environmental monitoring systems through a focus group, constructs a resulting prototype, and reflects upon the potential impact of IoT technologies on facilitating EUD behaviors within archival practice.

Monica G. Maceli

End-User Development in Speech Therapies: A Scenario in the Smart Home Domain

Abstract

Smart home systems allow the connection and the communication between different Internet of Things devices under the same environment. Those are commonly used to support people in their daily life, but most of them have more than just “leisure or fun” purposes. As a matter of fact, if correctly configured, the smart home and all the devices connected to it, can assist people in medical contexts. In this paper we propose a scenario where the smart home acts as active supporter and as an “emotion generator” for children with speech problems and that follow a specific speech therapy. As a matter of fact, emotions and speech capabilities are strictly connected in babies and young boys. The smart home environment can orchestrate the global devices functioning and improve the children emotional involvement in such therapy. On the other side, the speech therapist, through the EUD, can organize the smart home behaviour to better support the child.

Fabio Cassano, Antonio Piccinno, Paola Regina

Evaluation of a Visual Tool for Early Patent Infringement Detection During Design

Abstract

Patent infringement detection usually implies research among documents in different forms, in both natural and unstructured language, often involving a lot of human resources and time. In order to ease this patent check process, we previously presented a visual tool to be used by designers themselves at any stage of the design process, providing them with useful and reliable information for deciding whether to steer their design away from potential patent infringements. In this work, we report on a usability study carried out on such a tool with 21 professional designers from industry in the field of mechanical engineering. The outcome of our study shows that our tool is very well accepted by designers, and felt useful and helpful even by legal experts.

Salvatore Sorce, Alessio Malizia, Vito Gentile, Pingfei Jiang, Mark Atherton, David Harrison

Natural Language Data Queries on Multiple Heterogenous Data Sources

Abstract

Motivated by a real-world scenario, we enable end users to query data due natural language from different sources like spreadsheets and databases. We provide a natural language user interface (NLUI) solution on how real-world entities and relations between them can be interpreted as a model to allow end user questions on the data. Therefore, the system enables end users to give instructions step-by-step, to avoid the complexity in full descriptions and give directly feedback of success. An evaluation is conducted with human users who had to perform a series of tasks using natural language. Overall, 13 end user took part in our survey with ten questions. 94.9% of all answers in the first part could be resolved on spreadsheet data, and 62,5% on SQL database.

Alexander Wachtel, Dominik Fuchß, Matthias Przybylla, Walter F. Tichy

Open Piping: Towards an Open Visual Workflow Environment

Abstract

The most popular visual programming tools focus on procedural, object-oriented and event-based programming. This paper describes a boxes-and-wires functional programming tool, aimed to be accessible to novice programmers, while also supporting open access to the specified processes, executable programs and results for study and deployment.

Charles Boisvert, Chris Roast, Elizabeth Uruchurtu

Designing Troubleshooting Support Cards for Novice End-User Developers of Physical Computing Prototypes

Abstract

Previous work has shown that end-user developers (EUDs) find diagnosing and fixing circuit bugs in physical computing prototypes challenging. This paper reports on the design of a card deck to support troubleshooting by novice EUDs. The deck provides EUDs with ideas for different troubleshooting tactics and guides them in their use by encouraging reflection to help build EUDs’ troubleshooting knowledge and skill. We describe the design process and the resulting card deck. Our work contributes a new way of supporting EUDs in troubleshooting physical computing prototypes.

Tracey Booth, Jon Bird, Simone Stumpf, Sara Jones

End-User Development Goes to School: Collaborative Learning with Makerspaces in Subject Areas

Abstract

Norwegian K-12 curriculum reform for 2020 aims to integrate programming in different subject areas, especially math, natural sciences, arts and crafts, and music. There are challenges and opportunities associated with this scenario. A challenge is that students need to learn two topics simultaneously, and an opportunity is that teachers can adopt computer science skills gradually by building on their domain expertise and the notion of different levels of modification since most teachers are not yet fluent in computer science. We present an exploratory case study to show that end-user development (EUD) is a possible solution for the Norwegian situation. The case study demonstrates evidence of collaborative learning with EUD in a makerspace in an advanced placement science classroom for a mixture of gifted underachievers and high-achievers.

Anders I. Mørch, Kristina Torine Litherland, Renate Andersen

Virtual Assistants for End-User Development in the Internet of Things

Abstract

The spread of Virtual Assistants (software and hardware) on the consumer market deeply changed the way Internet of Things (IoT) is implemented and used today. Such devices, and related applications, are becoming more and more integrated within smart environments and this might pave the way to potential new approaches to End-User Development activities, which can be performed in IoT environments. This paper discusses the evolution of the IoT ecosystem definition that has been studied by the authors in the last years.

Barbara Rita Barricelli, Elena Casiraghi, Stefano Valtolina

Transforming Meta-design from Paradigm to Working Theory

Abstract

In a traditional product lifecycle, the design of the product typically predates its use. Meta-design is a paradigm rooted in end-user development research that aims to address this issue, by proposing a shift from the traditional design-time vs. use-time separation, towards a model where designers meta-design open ended systems that allow for future changes by end-users.

Meta-design has existed as a paradigm for almost 20 years, but is still not widely adopted in practice. The application and study of meta-design has been mostly limited to retrospective analyses, rendering the paradigm descriptive instead of prescriptive. The challenge remains in understanding the factors impacting the adoption of meta-design, and in predicting and explaining the factors that determine successful meta-designed environments. This paper proposes an approach towards building this understanding, in order to connect conceptual notions related to meta-design with knowledge obtained from studying its implementation.

Daniel Tetteroo

End-User Development for the Wolly Robot

Abstract

In this paper we describe the co-design and implementation of an educational robot called Wolly. We iteratively involved kids as co-designers helping us in shaping form and behavior of the robot, as well as the set of commands to control its actions and behavior.

Gianluca Bova, Davide Cellie, Cristina Gioia, Fabiana Vernero, Claudio Mattutino, Cristina Gena

PAC-PAC: End User Development of Immersive Point and Click Games

Abstract

We present a tool supporting end-users in the development of point-and-click videogames based on 360\(^o\) videos. It aims specifically at people without previous experience in game development and coding. Users can easily create scenes, add simple objects such as transitions or switches, connect scenes to each other and define the game rules. The tool is developed as a part of PAC-PAC, a project for promoting cultural and environmental heritage through videogames.

Filippo Andrea Fanni, Martina Senis, Alessandro Tola, Fabio Murru, Marco Romoli, Lucio Davide Spano, Ivan Blec̆ić, Giuseppe Andrea Trunfio

End-User Development in Industry 4.0: Challenges and Opportunities

Abstract

This position paper aims to discuss challenges and opportunities related to human-computer interaction technologies for Industry 4.0 and to explore the role that end-user development can play in new industrial scenarios. The paper highlights the gap between what Industry 4.0 and related enabling technologies promise and how the Operator 4.0 will be called on to change his/her work practice. End-user development and meta-design are here proposed as suitable methods to fill this gap and improve operators’ quality of work.

Daniela Fogli, Antonio Piccinno

A Browser-Based P2P Architecture for Collaborative End-User Artifacts in the Edge

Abstract

The Web is a natural platform for end-user development given the amount of services and contents that users may require to adapt, automate, etc. Transcodings, mashups, Web augmentation, and other techniques have emerged to allow end users to improve their Web experiences. In this context, the use of Web browser extensions is a very common strategy for these EUD environments. Sharing information about the same artifact among different users is still a challenge, since these artefacts are created to work standalone, or they are designed to centralize information in a back-end application in the cloud. This paper presents, Browser.ver, a novel P2P architecture for the creation of EUD environments in Web Browsers. Our aim is that it can be used for developing and deploying end-user tools that hosts services and applications for other users, without an intermediate server.

Rodolfo Gonzalez, Sergio Firmenich, Gustavo Rossi

An End-User Semantic Web Augmentation Tool

Abstract

Web Augmentation is usually applied to add, remove and change Web sites’ functionalities, content, and presentation. Content-based Web Augmentation is commonly performed by integrating content from an external Web site into the current one. In this article, we explore the use of the Semantic Web as a source of information to be incorporated to any Web site, aiming to simplify the development of Web Augmentation based on Semantic Web data. Our approach allows end-users without any programming skills to build Web Augmentation scripts that takes some information from the current Web page, and produce new related information gathered from the Semantic Web. This article introduces a pipeline process for building Semantic Web Augmentations and an end-user development tool called SWAX to create augmentation layers without the need for any programming or Semantic Web skills.

Cristian Sottile, Sergio Firmenich, Diego Torres

Improving Tools that Allow End Users to Configure Smart Environments

Abstract

The widespread introduction of the Internet of Things into people’s daily lives calls for approaches that allow even unskilled end users to autonomously configure their own smart environments. Various tools, either research or commercial, are available, which allow end users to combine smart objects and services for creating applications that meet their needs. However, challenging issues do persist, including interaction paradigms adequate to end users, as well as the ability to control that the created applications will do what they are intended to. This work-in-progress proposes the integration of two recently developed tools, in order to overcome some limitations of the existing solutions.

Carmelo Ardito, Maria F. Costabile, Giuseppe Desolda, Marco Manca, Maristella Matera, Fabio Paternò, Carmen Santoro

Research on Making Nature Smart with Children

Abstract

Recent research invites children to be the protagonists of the design of novel smart nature ecosystems for them. Games and card-based workshops can help engage them in co-design and serve as a tool for generating ideas and designing new concepts. The SNaP game is a collaborative card-based board game that aims at engaging 11–14 years old children as protagonists in the design of novel smart nature ecosystems. This paper outlines the main features of the game, the workshops it was used in and the resulting reflections.

Rosella Gennari, Maristella Matera, Alessandra Melonio, Eftychia Roumelioti

Backmatter