Investigating the relationship between usability and conceptual gaps for human-centric CASE tools

Author

Seffah, A. ; Rilling, J.

Author_Institution

Dept. of Comput. Sci., Concordia Univ., Montreal, Que., Canada

fYear

2001

fDate

2001

Firstpage

226

Lastpage

231

Abstract

Several interviews that we conducted highlight that many of the ease-of-use (usability) problems of CASE tools are instances of "conceptual gaps". A conceptual gap arises because of some difference between the software developer\´s mental model of the integrated development environment (IDE) and the way it can be used. Filling these gaps is the first step towards human-centric IDE. In this article, we begin by motivating our investigations with a survey highlighting common usability problems in the most popular Java IDEs. We then discuss how the developer\´s experiences with the complicity of cognitive studies can minimize these conceptual gaps while making the IDE more human-centered. We close our discussion with recommendations for establishing a rigorous scientific investigation for filling these conceptual gaps, as well as for developing and evaluating the ease of use of IDEs.

Keywords

Java; computer aided software engineering; human factors; project support environments; software tools; user centred design; Java; cognitive studies; conceptual gaps; ease of use; human-centric CASE tools; integrated software development environments; interviews; scientific investigation; software developer mental model; survey; usability; Cognitive science; Computer aided software engineering; Computer science; Conducting materials; Electronic mail; Filling; Java; Productivity; Programming; Usability;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Human-Centric Computing Languages and Environments, 2001. Proceedings IEEE Symposia on

Print_ISBN

0-7803-7198-4

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/HCC.2001.995263

Filename

995263