Understanding Software Visualization


The overall goal of this research is to determine how external representations of problems relate to the internal cognitive structures and activities of those who use them. So far my work has been in the domain of Software Visualization. Software Visualization (SV) is the attempt to use text, graphics and animation to represent a program and its execution. A large amount of research has been devoted to the construction of SV environments. My PhD research aimed to develop and apply an empirical methodology able to evaluate SV technology in a principled way. The work was carried out using the Prolog programming language. The methodology used protocol analysis techniques to gain a fine-grained account of the user in terms of what information they were able to draw from the display, what comprehension strategies were employed and whether any misunderstandings of the execution model or SV itself were apparent. This approach allowed the results to motivate improvements to existing SVs, new SV designs, and prescriptions to be made as to which SVs are most appropriate for specific populations.

Papers

Mulholland, P. (1999). The ISM framework: understanding and evaluating software visualization tools. In P. Brna, B. du Boulay and H. Pain, (Eds.), Learning to Build and Comprehend Complex Information Structures: Prolog as a Case Study. Norwood, NJ: Ablex.

Mulholland, P. and Eisenstadt, M. (1998). Using Software to Teach Computer Programming: Past, Present and Future. In J. Stasko, J. Domingue, M. Brown and B. Price (Eds.), Software Visualization: Programming as a mutli-media experience. MIT Press: Cambridge, MA. (33K)

Mulholland, P. (1998). A principled approach to the evaluation of Software Visualization: a case-study in Prolog. In J. Stasko, J. Domingue, M. Brown and B. Price (Eds.), Software Visualization: Programming as a mutli-media experience. MIT Press: Cambridge, MA. (33K)

Mulholland, P. (1997). Using a Fine-Grained Comparative Evaluation Technique to Understand and Design Software Visualization Tools. In S. Wiedenbeck and J. Scholtz (Eds.), Empirical Studies of Programmers: Seventh Workshop. New York: ACM Press. (47K)

Mulholland, P. (1997). Incorporating Software Visualization into Prolog teaching: a challenge, a restriction and an opportunity. Proceedings of the 8th Workshop on Logic Programming Environments, Leuven, Belgium. (58K)

Mulholland, P. (1995). A framework for describing and evaluating Software Visualization Systems: A case-study in Prolog. PhD Thesis, Knowledge Media Institute, The Open University.

Mulholland, P. (1995). Prolog without tears: An evaluation of the effectiveness of a non Byrd Box model for students. Collected Papers of the Psychology of Programming Interest Group, University of Edinburgh. (16K)

Mulholland, P. (1994). The effect of graphical and textual visualization on the comprehension of Prolog execution by novices: an empirical analysis. Collected Papers of the Psychology of Programming Interest Group, The Open University. (22K)

Mulholland, P. (1994). Evaluating Program Visualization Systems: an information-based methodology. Technical Report 107. Human Cognition Research Laboratory. The Open University. (44K)

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