A Debugging Perspective on End-User Mashup Programming

In recent years, systems have emerged that enable end users to “mash” together existing web services to build new web sites. However, little is known about how well end users succeed at building such mashups, or what they do if they do not succeed at their first attempt. To help fill this gap, we took a fresh look, from a debugging perspective, at the approaches of end users as they attempted to create mashups. Our results reveal the end users´ debugging strategies and strategy barriers, the gender differences between the debugging strategies males and females followed and the features they used, and finally how their debugging successes and difficulties interacted with their design behaviors.