How users interpret bugs in trigger-action programming
How users interpret bugs in trigger-action programming
Trigger-action programming (TAP) is a programming model enabling users to connect services and devices by writing if-then rules. As such systems are deployed in increasingly complex scenarios, users must be able to identify programming bugs and reason about how to fix them. We first systematize the temporal paradigms through which TAP systems could express rules. We then identify ten classes of TAP programming bugs related to control flow, timing, and inaccurate user expectations. We report on a 153-participant online study where participants were assigned to a temporal paradigm and shown a series of pre-written TAP rules. Half of the rules exhibited bugs from our ten bug classes. For most of the bug classes, we found that the presence of a bug made it harder for participants to correctly predict the behavior of the rule. Our findings suggest directions for better supporting end-user programmers.
Brackenbury, W.
47a535de-a308-410c-bab3-9ef9b05d4665
Deora, A.
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Ritchey, J.
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Vallee, J.
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He, W.
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Wang, G.
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Littman, M.L.
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Ur, B.
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2019
Brackenbury, W.
47a535de-a308-410c-bab3-9ef9b05d4665
Deora, A.
e643e696-0594-412a-a916-e61e5c0907a6
Ritchey, J.
54d5efb7-2c2e-4805-b931-7a7cb84875c9
Vallee, J.
87c6c2cc-fce3-4aef-be6f-9c5b6cba8036
He, W.
f2223ad6-d8bd-4a98-8d6b-6ca8feef0a04
Wang, G.
259292f9-f2ca-4fd1-926d-ec760d92697b
Littman, M.L.
22c4a5b6-d6c6-4f81-abb9-342a28c6009f
Ur, B.
34b9030c-c01e-4c39-9e77-55b109414a77
Brackenbury, W., Deora, A., Ritchey, J., Vallee, J., He, W., Wang, G., Littman, M.L. and Ur, B.
(2019)
How users interpret bugs in trigger-action programming.
In Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems - Proceedings.
ACM Press..
(doi:10.1145/3290605.3300782).
Record type:
Conference or Workshop Item
(Paper)
Abstract
Trigger-action programming (TAP) is a programming model enabling users to connect services and devices by writing if-then rules. As such systems are deployed in increasingly complex scenarios, users must be able to identify programming bugs and reason about how to fix them. We first systematize the temporal paradigms through which TAP systems could express rules. We then identify ten classes of TAP programming bugs related to control flow, timing, and inaccurate user expectations. We report on a 153-participant online study where participants were assigned to a temporal paradigm and shown a series of pre-written TAP rules. Half of the rules exhibited bugs from our ten bug classes. For most of the bug classes, we found that the presence of a bug made it harder for participants to correctly predict the behavior of the rule. Our findings suggest directions for better supporting end-user programmers.
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Published date: 2019
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Local EPrints ID: 494670
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/494670
PURE UUID: b878606c-d19f-4d10-a6ad-9210d0eb0f06
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Date deposited: 11 Oct 2024 17:09
Last modified: 12 Oct 2024 03:03
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Author:
W. Brackenbury
Author:
A. Deora
Author:
J. Ritchey
Author:
J. Vallee
Author:
W. He
Author:
G. Wang
Author:
M.L. Littman
Author:
B. Ur
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