CHI 2008 Proceedings · Beyond End-User Programming
April 5-10, 2008 · Florence, Italy
Testing vs. Code Inspection vs. ... What Else? Male and Female End Users’ Debugging Strategies
Neeraja Subrahmaniyan, Laura Beckwith, Valentina Grigoreanu, Margaret Burnett, Susan Wiedenbeck, Vaishnavi Narayanan, Karin Bucht, Russell Drummond, and Xiaoli Fern Oregon State University Drexel University Corvallis, OR, USA Philadelphia, PA {subrahmn,beckwith,grigorev,burnett,narayava,xfern}@cs.orst.edu Susan.Wiedenbeck@cis.drexel.edu
ABSTRACT
Little is known about the strategies end-user programmers use in debugging their programs, and even less is known about gender differences that may exist in these strategies. Without this type of information, designers of end-user programming systems cannot know the ―target‖ at which to aim, if they are to support male and female end-user programmers. We present a study investigating this issue. We asked end-user programmers to debug spreadsheets and to describe their debugging strategies. Using mixed methods, we analyzed their strategies and looked for relationships among participants‘ strategy choices, gender, and debugging success. Our results indicate that males and females debug in quite different ways, that opportunities for improving support for end-user debugging strategies for both genders are abundant, and that tools currently available to end-user debuggers may be especially deficient in supporting debugging strategies used by females.
Author Keywords
vironment appeal [15], playful tinkering with features [5], and attitudes toward and usage of end-user software design and debugging features [4, 6, 22]. Still, these results fail to say how males and females would like to approach debugging. Studying environment features, as in previous research, allows consideration of only that which exists. This paper looks beyond features to debugging strategies, to consider that which may not yet exist, but should. This paper reports... [continues]
April 5-10, 2008 · Florence, Italy
Testing vs. Code Inspection vs. ... What Else? Male and Female End Users’ Debugging Strategies
Neeraja Subrahmaniyan, Laura Beckwith, Valentina Grigoreanu, Margaret Burnett, Susan Wiedenbeck, Vaishnavi Narayanan, Karin Bucht, Russell Drummond, and Xiaoli Fern Oregon State University Drexel University Corvallis, OR, USA Philadelphia, PA {subrahmn,beckwith,grigorev,burnett,narayava,xfern}@cs.orst.edu Susan.Wiedenbeck@cis.drexel.edu
ABSTRACT
Little is known about the strategies end-user programmers use in debugging their programs, and even less is known about gender differences that may exist in these strategies. Without this type of information, designers of end-user programming systems cannot know the ―target‖ at which to aim, if they are to support male and female end-user programmers. We present a study investigating this issue. We asked end-user programmers to debug spreadsheets and to describe their debugging strategies. Using mixed methods, we analyzed their strategies and looked for relationships among participants‘ strategy choices, gender, and debugging success. Our results indicate that males and females debug in quite different ways, that opportunities for improving support for end-user debugging strategies for both genders are abundant, and that tools currently available to end-user debuggers may be especially deficient in supporting debugging strategies used by females.
Author Keywords
vironment appeal [15], playful tinkering with features [5], and attitudes toward and usage of end-user software design and debugging features [4, 6, 22]. Still, these results fail to say how males and females would like to approach debugging. Studying environment features, as in previous research, allows consideration of only that which exists. This paper looks beyond features to debugging strategies, to consider that which may not yet exist, but should. This paper reports... [continues]
Cite This Essay
- APA
-
(2010, 12). Male and Female End Users’ Debugging Strategies. StudyMode.com. Retrieved 12, 2010, from http://www.studymode.com/essays/Male-And-Female-End-Users-Debugging-526322.html
- MLA
-
"Male and Female End Users’ Debugging Strategies" StudyMode.com. 12 2010. 12 2010 <http://www.studymode.com/essays/Male-And-Female-End-Users-Debugging-526322.html>.
- CHICAGO
-
"Male and Female End Users’ Debugging Strategies." StudyMode.com. 12, 2010. Accessed 12, 2010. http://www.studymode.com/essays/Male-And-Female-End-Users-Debugging-526322.html.
