Blogs (1) >>
VL/HCC 2020
Tue 11 - Fri 14 August 2020 Dunedin, New Zealand
Wed 12 Aug 2020 13:45 - 14:00 at Zoom Room - Supporting Learners with Technology Chair(s): Alexander Repenning

Code comprehension, especially understanding relationships across project elements (code, documentation, etc.), is non-trivial when information is spread across different interfaces and tools. Bringing the right amount of information, to the place where it is relevant and when it is needed can help reduce the costs of seeking information and creating mental models of the code relationships. While non-traditional IDEs have tried to mitigate these costs by allowing users to spatially place relevant information together, thus far, no study has examined the effects of these non-traditional interactions on code comprehension. Here, we present an empirical study to investigate how allowing the right information at the right time and right place allows users—especially newcomers—to reduce the costs of code comprehension. We use a non-traditional IDE, called Synectic, and implement link-able annotations which provide affordances for each of these accuracy, time, and space dimensions. We conducted a between-subjects user study of 22 newcomers performing code comprehension tasks using either Synectic or a traditional IDE, Eclipse. We found that having the right information at the right time and place leads to increased accuracy and reduced cognitive load during code comprehension tasks, without sacrificing the usability of developer tools.

Presentation Slides (Paper48.pdf)7.18MiB

Wed 12 Aug

Displayed time zone: Pacific Time (US & Canada) change

13:15 - 14:00
Supporting Learners with TechnologyResearch Papers at Zoom Room
Chair(s): Alexander Repenning University of Colorado, Boulder
13:15
15m
Talk
Exploring Programmers’ API Learning Processes: Collecting Web Resources as External MemoryFull paper
Research Papers
Gao Gao University of Massachusetts Lowell, Finn Voichick Washington University in St. Louis, Michelle Brachman University of Massachusetts Lowell, Caitlin Kelleher Washington University in St. Louis
Authorizer link
13:30
8m
Talk
Learners' Perspectives on Learning Programming from Interactive Computer Tutors in a MOOCShort paper
Research Papers
Ruiqi Shen New Jersey Institute of Technology, Michael Lee New Jersey Institute of Technology
Authorizer link
13:38
7m
Talk
Convo: What does conversational programming need?Short paper
Research Papers
Jessica Van Brummelen MIT, Kevin Weng MIT-CSAIL, Phoebe Lin Harvard Graduate School of Design, Catherine Yeo Harvard University
Authorizer link
13:45
15m
Talk
Supporting Code Comprehension via Annotations: Right Information at the Right Time and PlaceFull paper
Research Papers
Marjan Adeli Oregon State University, Nicholas Nelson Oregon State University, Souti Chattopadhyay Oregon State University, Hayden Coffey University of Tennessee Knoxville, Austin Henley University of Tennessee, Anita Sarma Oregon State University
Authorizer link Pre-print File Attached