Traditionally, research into end-user programming has focused on how to
make programming more accessible to end users. However, few researchers
have considered providing end users with devices to help improve the
reliability of the programs they create. To help improve the reliability of
spreadsheets created by end users, we are working to allow users to
communicate the purpose and other underlying information about their
spreadsheets using a form of requirement specifications we call "guards."
Guards were initially designed for individual cells but, for large spreadsheets,
with replicated/shared formulas across groups of rows or columns, guards can
only be practical if users can enter them across these groups of rows or
columns. The problem is, this introduces many-to-many relationships, at the
intersection of rows and columns with guards. It is not clear how the system
should reason and communicate about many-to-many relationships in a way
that will make sense to end users. In this thesis, we present the human-centric
design rationale for our approach to how the system should reason about such
many-to-many relationships. The design decisions are presented with their
reasons gleaned from two design-time models--Cognitive Dimensions and
Attention Investment--and from the users themselves in a small think-aloud
study. / Graduation date: 2003
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ORGSU/oai:ir.library.oregonstate.edu:1957/32374 |
| Date | 18 November 2002 |
| Creators | Beckwith, Laura A. |
| Contributors | Burnett, Margaret M. |
| Source Sets | Oregon State University |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis/Dissertation |
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