How “Friendly” Integrated Development Environments Are?

Jenny Morales, Federico Botella, Cristian Rusu, Daniela Quiñones

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contributionpeer-review

2 Scopus citations

Abstract

Programmers and software developers are using different Integrated Development Environments (IDEs) to perform their daily work. IDEs are often complex applications, not friendly for novice programmers, with a learning process of several weeks and with usability and satisfaction of use not always as good as expected. The Programmer eXperience (PX) is a particular case of User eXperience (UX), based on the use of the IDEs and other artifacts. We have found studies about the programmer’s behavior and work, and also articles addressed the usability and new tools proposals for IDEs. In this work, we conducted a survey to evaluate the usability of several IDEs. The survey was based on the System Usability Scale (SUS), which we adapted for the purpose of our research. We focus the study on popular IDEs such as Dev-C++, Eclipse and NetBeans. The survey was conducted in two Chilean universities and one Spanish university, with students enrolled in two undergraduate programs in Informatics Engineering. The results obtained show that the IDEs evaluated have several issues related to the usability perceived by our participants. An interview was conducted with six experienced programmers that are working in different programming environments, in order to consult them on what aspects they would like to improve the IDEs. Their comments indicate that IDEs should incorporate connection with other programmers, and also, they claim for more intuitive interfaces and understandable error messages.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationSocial Computing and Social Media. Design, Human Behavior and Analytics - 11th International Conference, SCSM 2019, Held as Part of the 21st HCI International Conference, HCII 2019, Proceedings
EditorsGabriele Meiselwitz
PublisherSpringer Verlag
Pages80-91
Number of pages12
ISBN (Print)9783030219017
DOIs
StatePublished - 2019
Event11th International Conference on Social Computing and Social Media, SCSM 2019, held as part of the 21st International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction, HCI International 2019 - Orlando, United States
Duration: 26 Jul 201931 Jul 2019

Publication series

NameLecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics)
Volume11578 LNCS
ISSN (Print)0302-9743
ISSN (Electronic)1611-3349

Conference

Conference11th International Conference on Social Computing and Social Media, SCSM 2019, held as part of the 21st International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction, HCI International 2019
Country/TerritoryUnited States
CityOrlando
Period26/07/1931/07/19

Keywords

  • Integrated Development Environment
  • Interview
  • Programmer eXperience
  • Survey
  • Usability
  • User eXperience

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'How “Friendly” Integrated Development Environments Are?'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this