Result: Shelves: A User-Defined Block Management Tool for Visual Programming Languages

Title:
Shelves: A User-Defined Block Management Tool for Visual Programming Languages
Authors:
Hsu, Sheng-Yi, Lou, Yuan-Fu, Jung, Shing-Yun, Sun, Chuen-Tsai
Contributors:
National Chiao Tung University (NCTU), Regina Bernhaupt, Girish Dalvi, Anirudha Joshi, Devanuj K. Balkrishan, Jacki O'Neill, Marco Winckler, TC 13
Source:
16th IFIP Conference on Human-Computer Interaction (INTERACT). :335-344
Publisher Information:
HAL CCSD; Springer International Publishing, 2017.
Publication Year:
2017
Collection:
collection:IFIP-LNCS
collection:IFIP
collection:IFIP-TC13
collection:IFIP-INTERACT
collection:IFIP-LNCS-10515
Subject Terms:
Human-computer interaction, Computer education, Visual programming languages, Code usability, Project-based learning, [INFO]Computer Science [cs]
Subject Geographic:
Bombay, India
Original Identifier:
HAL: hal-01717199
Document Type:
Conference conferenceObject<br />Conference papers
Language:
English
Relation:
info:eu-repo/semantics/altIdentifier/doi/10.1007/978-3-319-67687-6_22
DOI:
10.1007/978-3-319-67687-6_22
Access URL:
https://hal.inria.fr/hal-01717199
https://hal.inria.fr/hal-01717199/document
https://hal.inria.fr/hal-01717199/file/421764_1_En_22_Chapter.pdf
Rights:
info:eu-repo/semantics/OpenAccess
URL: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/
Accession Number:
edshal.hal.01717199v1
Database:
HAL

Further Information

Part 5: Personalisation and Visualisation
Block editors such as the one used in Scratch are now found in many visual programming languages (VPLs). While considered user-friendly for non-programmers or program learners, they have at least three important display limitations: readability, program structure, and re-use. To address these issues we have developed block shelves, a formatting and organizing tool in support of user-defined VPL structures. Usability experiment results indicate that block shelves can significantly enhance block code navigation and searches, as well as project structure clarification. In the interest of improving project collaboration and code re-use, users can utilize the extensible markup language file format to export/import shelves, and thereby share block codes between projects. Features designed for shelves and the experiment findings are value for course design in project-based learning and future block editor interface improvements.