Natural End-User Development of Web Mashups

TitleNatural End-User Development of Web Mashups
Publication TypeConference Paper
Year of Publication2013
AuthorsAghaee, S., C. Pautasso, and A. De Angeli
Conference NameIEEE Symposium on Visual Languages and Human-Centric Computing (VL/HCC 2013)
Pages111 - 118
MonthSeptember
PublisherIEEE
Conference LocationSan Jose, CA, USA
Keywordsend-user software engineering, natural language processing, NaturalMash, service composition, Web mashups
Abstract

End-User Development (EUD) can be exploited on the Web, where users have the opportunity to create niche “Web Mashup” applications as a means to address their long tail of situational needs in different domains of application. In this paper, we describe the design and evaluation of NaturalMash, an innovative EUD system for mashups. NaturalMash provides a high level of expressive power while it is still usable by non-professional users. This clearly distinguishes NaturalMash from existing mashup EUD tools that are either too limited or highly specialized for inexperienced users. The NaturalMash user interface efficiently combines different techniques such as live programming, natural language programming, What You See Is What You Get (WYSIWYG), and Programming by Demonstration (PbD). The design of NaturalMash adopts a formative evaluation approach, and has completed two design and evaluation iterations. The paper reports the results of the last formative evaluation and discusses the implications of the findings. The results are promising and suggest that the proposed system has a short and gentle learning curve and enables even non-professional users to rapidly build useful mashups.

DOI10.1109/VLHCC.2013.6645253
Citation Keynaturalmash:vlhcc:2013