Reaktiv programmering är ett programmeringsparadigm som har utvecklats för att underlätta byggande av händelsedrivna reaktiva applikationer. Dess förespråkare hävdar att det kan leda till ökad kodkvalitet, men få studier har utförts för att underbygga dessa påståenden empiriskt. Denna studie syftade till att undersöka skillnaden i kodkomplexitet och kodläsbarhet mellan traditionell imperativ programmering och reaktiv programmering. En fallstudie utfördes där koden för ett befintligt öppen källkodsprojekt omstrukturerades, vilket resulterade i en imperativ version och en reaktiv version av samma kod. Verktyg för statisk källkodsanalys användes för att undersöka om några förändringar i kodläsbarhet och kodkomplexitet kunde upptäckas. Vidare diskuteras huruvida resultaten av den senaste teknikens läsbarhetsmätvärden ger en exakt förutsägelse av kodläsbarheten i reaktiva kodbaser, eller om kanske dessa mätvärden behöver modifieras för att göra dem tillämpliga på det reaktiva paradigmet. Våra resultat visar att läsbarheten påverkades negativt av reaktiv programmering när den mättes med senaste teknikens läsbarhetsmätvärden, men kodkomplexiteten minskades betydligt. / Reactive programming is a programming paradigm that has been proposed to facilitate building eventdriven reactive applications. It is claimed by its proponents to increase code quality, but few studies have been performed to substantiate these claims empirically. This study aimed to explore the difference in code complexity and code readability between traditional imperative programming and reactive programming. A case study was performed where the code of an existing open source project was restructured, resulting in an imperative version and a reactive version of the same code. Static analysis tools were used to investigate if any changes in code readability and code complexity could be detected. Furthermore, it is discussed whether the results of the state-of-the-art readability metrics give an accurate prediction of code readability in reactive code bases, or if perhaps these metrics need to be modified to make them applicable to the reactive paradigm. Our findings show that the readability was negatively affected by reactive programming when measured with state-of the-art readability metrics, however code complexity was decreased significantly

Background: Building software systems is an iterative and collaborative project, requiring developers not only to write code, but to maintain, expand, fix and enhance code already written. In order to do so, reading code is a central activity, and therefore it is important that code is written in a manner that makes it readable. Objectives: To map the state-of-the-art of software source code readability and find the definitions and methods to measure it, and provide an overview of the kinds of factors considered to impact software source code readability, and to compare this to practitioners' experiences of software source code readability. Methods: A systematic literature review of 76 studies in 72 papers from the last 40 years, explicitly concerning software source code readability, is compared with the results of five interviews with practitioners, of which three are case studies of commits explicitly targeting readability. Results: While individual factors' contribution towards readability is studied with some success, more general modelling studies often suffer from methodological problems, making them difficult to apply in practice or in studies of the correlation between software source code readability and other metrics. Conclusions: Key elements of the state-of-the-art have been implemented in practice, however, readability models are not used by the practitioners in this study. Several factors mentioned by practitioners are not considered by the studies included, and further qualitative study of software development practitioners may be needed.

This study provides a rationale for adopting course materials. It demonstrates the relationship between ability to read assigned materials and academic achievement, and that selection of materials creates two groups having different probabilities of success. The sample was selected from a population of all students enrolled in Principles of Economics courses at North Texas State University in the spring semester of 1986. The Nelson-Denny Reading Test was used to determine reading ability. Assigned materials were analyzed for readability. A frustration level was determined and used to divide the sample: the group of interest, those with reading abilities below the frustration level who underwent the treatment of reading materials written above their ability to comprehend; and the comparison group, those with reading abilities above the frustration level who did not undergo the treatment.

With multimodal methods and material gaining traction in classrooms, the need to critically assess these becomes increasingly important, especially in order to verify their efficacy and ability to meet the needs of each individual student, regardless of ability or special requirements. In the case of this study, the focus is on textbooks produced for the course Historia 1b at the upper secondary level of the Swedish education system. By analyzing the readability, layout, and functions of illustrations in three textbooks, as well as the gender representation in the material, the aim of this study is to generate a quantifiable dataset, on which conclusions regarding the efficacy of said illustrations can be made. Additionally, the results of this study are compared to those of previous studies, to ascertain whether there is a quantifiable difference in the use of illustrations in textbooks published for use in different curricula.  The results of this study indicate that there is a marginal improvement in the use of illustrations between textbooks produced for the current and the previous curriculum. Additionally, the data suggests that the representation of women in illustrations in textbooks has increased in comparison to previous studies. However, the findings indicate that there is still a need for further improvements regarding the use of illustrations in textbooks, as well as more thorough evaluations of the possibility of diminishing returns in the case of their readability.

Det här är ett examensarbete i textdesign som bygger på ett uppdrag från Energy Evolution Center. Tillsammans med Mälardalens högskola har Energy Evolution Center tagit fram en metodhandbok för mätning och verifiering av energiprestanda som ännu inte är utgiven. Metodhandboken har en lärande funktion som syftar till att skapa förståelse hos läsaren om processer och metoder kring mätning och verifiering. Syftet med detta arbete är att göra metodhandboken mer användarvänlig genom att förenkla texten som i nuläget upplevs som tung och svår även av personer som arbetar med energifrågor. En av orsakerna till svårighetsgraden i texten är den frekventa användningen av akronymer och initialismer (initialförkortningar). Med stöd från teorier om kognition och minne, samt läsbarhet och stilistik använder jag mig av relevanta metoder för att ta reda på om tydligare associationer och textsammanhang kan hjälpa läsaren att förstå och minnas förkortningarna i handboken. Undersökningen sker i form av en utprovning där studiedeltagare får läsa omarbetade textstycken från handboken där bland annat tydligare associationer till förkortningarna adderats ihop med annan textredigering. I enkätsvaren från utprovningen går det att se att associationerna och textsammanhanget hade viss positiv påverkan på minne och förståelse. / This Bachelor in Textdesign is based on an assignment given by Energy Evolution Center. Energy Evolution Center has developed a guidebook, that is yet to be released, of methods for measurement and verification of energy efficiency actions with help from Mälardalens University. The purpose of the guidebook is to create a sense of understanding about the processes and methods behind the measurement and verification activity. The aim of this Bachelor is to increase the guidebooks usability by simplifying the text content which is considered hard even for individuals in the field. One of the reasons is the frequency of Acronyms and Initialisms. Supported by theories of cognition, memory, and readability I turn to relevant methods for determining if associations and context can help the abbreviations to be remembered and comprehended by the reader. The study method is prototype testing and survey. The participants were asked to read edited parts of the guidebook where the abbreviations been combined with associations before answering questions. The result indicates a positive effect in memory and comprehension.

Educators often inquire about the readability of books and other documents used in the classroom, with the idea that readability supports students' reading comprehension and growth. Documents used in classrooms tend to be language-based, so readability metrics have long focused on the complexity of language. However, such metrics are unsuitable for multimodal documents because these types of documents also use non-language modes of communication. This is problematic because multimodal reading is increasingly recognized as a 21st-century skill. One information theoretic solution is transinformation analysis, an approach that measures readability as the difference between the objective entropy of a document and the subjective entropy of its reader. Higher transinformation indicates more information complexity. This study explored the viability of transinformation analysis as a measure of multimodal readability. Think aloud screen recordings from 15 eighth grade "advanced readers" of Episode 2 of the born-digital novel, Inanimate Alice served as the dataset. Findings showed that 14 of the readers attended to less than half the information in the story. Mean readability was .57, indicating a complex reading experience. Readers attended to and recalled information primarily from the linguistic mode, which may have been a strategy for reducing cognitive load, or it may have reflected beliefs that reading is a language-based activity. The strong traditional readers in this study appeared to be weak at multimodal reading. In addition to its theoretical and methodological implications, the study's findings have implications for the practical need to create more opportunities for multimodal reading experiences in contemporary classrooms and libraries.

For decades, teachers and language learners have been concerned about matching the difficulty level of texts to the proficiency level of learners in order to achieve comprehensible input, which leads to effective learning. Some leveling systems and research use word lists as part of their leveling processes, particularly the Academic Word List. The Academic Vocabulary List (AVL) has not been explored yet as a leveling tool, so this study aims to address this lack of research by examining how the AVL words vary in cumulative frequency bands and also in separate frequency bands with regard to level and topic. The AVL was divided into 5 frequency bands and compared against corpora of biology and U.S. history texts at the elementary, junior high, high school, and university levels. Results showed that the biology texts had a higher percentage of total AVL tokens than the history texts did, suggesting that the AVL may be more suitable for some disciplines than others. For the cumulative bands, Bands 1 through 3 proved to have the highest percent deltas, suggesting that words 1 to 800 are the most useful to learn. Looking at each separate band, Bands 1 and 2 had the highest percent of AVL tokens at the high school level, implying that the words of these bands are especially valuable for learners at this level. The university level had the highest percentage for Bands 3 through 5. There was no statistical significance for any band concerning the factor of the relationship between topic and level, but there was statistical significance for the factor of proficiency level at every level. For the factor of topic, there was significance for every band except Band 3. For each band, the elementary and junior high texts were generally similar to each other concerning the AVL tokens found in them. High school and university texts were similar to each other for Bands 1 and 2 but were not similar to each other for Bands 3 through 5.

Detta är ett examensarbete i informationsdesign med inriktning textdesign. Syftet med arbetet är att skapa tillgänglig information för nybörjare inom ridsporten, samt undersöka hur informationen kan nå målgruppen trots omgivande brus. Teorier som läsbarhet, gestaltlagar och perception har använts för att uppnå en slutgiltig gestaltning men också för att ge studien relevans i forskningssammanhang. Intervju, observation, prototyping och utprovning är de metoder som har använts i studien. Metoderna har använts för att utforska användarnas behov och för att komma fram till resultatet. Ett gestaltningsförslag har utprovats på målgruppen, efter en analys av resultatet gjordes en revidering på det första gestaltningsförslaget som sedan ledde till det slutgiltiga designförslaget. / This is a bachelor thesis in information design with a focus on text design. The purpose of the work is to create accessible information for beginners in equestrian sports, as well as to investigate how the information can reach the target group despite the surrounding noise. Theories such as readability, gestalt laws and perception have been used to achieve a final presentation but also to give the study relevance in a research context. Interview, observation, prototyping, and testing are the methods that have been used in the study. The methods have been used to explore the needs of the users and to arrive at the results. A design proposal has been tested on the target group, after an analysis of the results, a revision was made to the first design proposal which then led to the final design proposal.

Detta är ett examensarbete inom informationsdesign med inriktning textdesign. Syftet med detta arbete är att granska två utvalda delar ur ett utbildningsmaterial för folkrace och se om det finns några svårigheter med termer och multimodalitet i informationen hos användargruppen. Användargruppen för arbetet är personer som vill börja köra motorsporten folkrace. Teorier som behandlats är multimodalitet, begriplighet och läsbarhet. Metoderna som använts är läsbarhetsanalys, enkät och intervjuer. Utifrån resultatet från metoderna har en prototyp av en app tagits fram och testats på en utvald person från användargruppen. Utprovningen genomfördes med hjälp av en observation när testpersonen använde prototypen och strukturerade frågor efter observationens slut. Slutsatser som dragits från studien är att användargruppen inte upplever några svårigheter med termer, men att det saknas användning av multimodalitet i utbildningsmaterialet för att informationen ska bli tydligare. / This study is a bachelor thesis in the field of Information design with focus on text design. The purpose with this study is to investigate two selected parts from an educational material for the Swedish motorsport called folk race and see if there are any difficulties with terms and multimodality in the information for the target group. The target group are people that want to start competing in folk race. Theories that have been used for this study are multimodality, comprehensibility and readability. Methods used in this study are a survey, interviews and a readability analysis. From the result I got from the methods, a prototype for an app was drafted and tested on a selected person from the target group. The test was carried out through an observation of the person testing the prototype and structured questions after the observation. The conclusion of this study is that the target group did not find the terms difficult, but multimodality is missing in the education material to make information clearer.

Readability assessment (RA) is to assign a score or a grade to a given document, which measures the degree of difficulty to read the document. RA originated in language education studies and was used to classify reading materials for language learners. Later, RA was applied to many other applications, such as aiding automatic text simplification.  This thesis is aimed at improving the way of using Transformer for RA. The motivation is the “pipeline” effect (Tenney et al., 2019) of pretrained Transformers: lexical, syntactic, and semantic features are best encoded with different layers of a Transformer model.  After a preliminary test of a basic RA model that resembles the previous works, we proposed several methods to enhance the performance: by using a Transformer layer that is not the last, by concatenating or mixing the outputs of all layers, and by using syntax-augmented Transformer layers. We examined these enhanced methods on three datasets: WeeBit, OneStopEnglish, and CommonLit.  We observed that the improvements showed a clear correlation with the dataset characteristics. On the OneStopEnglish and the CommonLit datasets, we achieved absolute improvements of 1.2% in F1 score and 0.6% in Pearson’s correlation coefficients, respectively. We also show that an 𝑛-gram frequency- based baseline, which is simple but was not reported in previous works, has superior performance on the classification datasets (WeeBit and OneStopEnglish), prompting further research on vocabulary-based lexical features for RA.