Document Type

Technical Report

Department

Computer Science and Engineering

Publication Date

1996-01-01

Filename

WUCS-96-26.PDF

Technical Report Number

WUCS-96-26

Abstract

This paper describes an empirical study of end-users that tested the usability of The Programmers' Playground graphical environment. The Programmers' Playground is a software library and run-time system for constructing distributed multimedia applications. Playground's graphical environment enables end-users to create direct manipulation graphical user interfaces (GUIs) and to dynamically configure communication among distributed application components. In this study, 28 end-users with no prior experience in distributed computing or user interface construction were timed and evaluated on several tasks using our graphical environment. Tasks included the use of direct and indirect constraint relationships, visual configuration of distributed applications, and graphical user interface construction. The results show that a wide variety of end-users (i.e., not just programmers) can learn and apply these concepts, utilizing our graphical environment to constructe distributed multimedia applications.

Comments

Permanent URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.7936/K7FF3QK6

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