A community learns design: towards a pattern language for novice visual programmers

We conducted a one-day design workshop in which residents of a community collaborated in learning about and designing community-related visual simulations (to be implemented in Stagecast Creator). An analysis of their design ideas and concerns revealed several visual design patterns that were apparent even in these very early stages of simulation design. This analysis helps us to characterize the design constructs people may be able to specify or learn when first encountering visual simulation design tasks and projects. In this paper, we introduce the concept of patterns and their relationship to visual programming and present several visual programming language patterns mined from the projects developed at the community simulation design workshop. Finally, we discuss how these patterns might be incorporated into minimalist tutorials that we are developing to introduce community residents to visual simulation design.