Features for debugging in a visual dataflow environment for end-user programmers

Debugging, an integral part of software development, is difficult for end-user programmers, especially in the case of complex programs. The process of isolating errors is time consuming without the help of debugging support provided by the tool. For example, the visual programming tool LondonTube supports creation of custom mobile-cloud-web applications, but previous research indicated that the users of LondonTube had questions on usage of program components and run time status of a program even while creating a simple application. To address these issues, this project was focused on creating two features, ‘Analyze’ and ‘Trace’, improving the visual programming tool by providing static analysis and runtime status for helping users to find/fix errors. A laboratory experiment evaluated the effectiveness of the prototype in comparison to the baseline (without the new features). The results of this study revealed that the users of this prototype were more satisfied with the system, took less time to complete assigned tasks, and asked fewer questions about usage of program components