Service Composition for Non-programmers: Prospects, Problems, and Design Recommendations

Although Service Oriented Architecture technologies are becoming widespread, user research to support the exploitation and composition of services by non-programmers is still in its infancy. This paper presents three user studies conducted during the user-centered design of the Serv Face Builder, a service composition tool for non-programmers. Results suggest that end users do not realize that services can be connected together and do not easily understand that information can flow between services. Further conceptual and usability problems of service composition for end users and some guidelines to overcome them are discussed.