Title :
Usability Evaluation of Domain-Specific Languages
Author :
Bariic, A. ; Amaral, Vitor ; Goulao, Miguel
Author_Institution :
Dept. de Inf., Univ. Nova de Lisboa, Caparica, Portugal
Abstract :
Domain-Specific Languages (DSLs) are claimed to bring important productivity improvements to developers, when compared to General-Purpose Languages (GPLs). The increased Usability is regarded as one of the key benefits of DSLs when compared to GPLs, and has an important impact on the achieved productivity of the DSL users. So, it is essential to build in good usability while developing the DSL. The purpose of this proposal is to contribute to the systematic activity of Software Language Engineering by focusing on the issue of the Usability evaluation of DSLs. Usability evaluation is often skipped, relaxed, or at least omitted from papers reporting development of DSLs. We argue that a systematic approach based on User Interface experimental validation techniques should be used to assess the impact of new DSLs. For that purpose, we propose to merge common Usability evaluation processes with the DSL development process. In order to provide reliable metrics and tools we should reuse and identify good practices that exist in Human-Computer Interaction community.
Keywords :
human computer interaction; software engineering; specification languages; user interfaces; DSL development process; GPL; domain-specific languages; general-purpose language; human-computer interaction community; software language engineering; systematic approach; usability evaluation; user interface experimental validation techniques; Domain-Specific Languages; Software Language Engineering; Usability Evaluation;
Conference_Titel :
Quality of Information and Communications Technology (QUATIC), 2012 Eighth International Conference on the
Conference_Location :
Lisbon
Print_ISBN :
978-1-4673-2345-1
DOI :
10.1109/QUATIC.2012.63