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Using concept maps to evaluate the usability of APIs

Published: 10 April 2010 Publication History

Abstract

Application programming interfaces (APIs) are the interfaces to existing code structures, such as widgets, frameworks, or toolkits. Therefore, they very much do have an impact on the quality of the resulting system. So ensuring that developers can make the most out of them is an important challenge. However standard usability evaluation methods as known from HCI have limitations in grasping the interaction between developer and API -- the GUI, which makes this interaction obvious, is missing. In this paper we present a longitudinal approach using concept maps and a question diary to make this interaction visible and study the usability of an API over time.

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Cited By

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  • (2019)The Long Tail: Understanding the Discoverability of API Functionality2019 IEEE Symposium on Visual Languages and Human-Centric Computing (VL/HCC)10.1109/VLHCC.2019.8818681(157-161)Online publication date: Oct-2019
  • (2019)MARBLEProceedings of the 34th IEEE/ACM International Conference on Automated Software Engineering10.1109/ASE.2019.00063(615-627)Online publication date: 10-Nov-2019
  • (2017)Understanding Concept MapsProceedings of the 2017 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3025453.3025977(815-827)Online publication date: 2-May-2017
  • Show More Cited By

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    cover image ACM Conferences
    CHI EA '10: CHI '10 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems
    April 2010
    2219 pages
    ISBN:9781605589305
    DOI:10.1145/1753846

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    New York, NY, United States

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    Published: 10 April 2010

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    Author Tags

    1. API usability
    2. concept maps
    3. longitudinal evaluation

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    CHI EA '10 Paper Acceptance Rate 350 of 1,346 submissions, 26%;
    Overall Acceptance Rate 6,164 of 23,696 submissions, 26%

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    View all
    • (2019)The Long Tail: Understanding the Discoverability of API Functionality2019 IEEE Symposium on Visual Languages and Human-Centric Computing (VL/HCC)10.1109/VLHCC.2019.8818681(157-161)Online publication date: Oct-2019
    • (2019)MARBLEProceedings of the 34th IEEE/ACM International Conference on Automated Software Engineering10.1109/ASE.2019.00063(615-627)Online publication date: 10-Nov-2019
    • (2017)Understanding Concept MapsProceedings of the 2017 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3025453.3025977(815-827)Online publication date: 2-May-2017
    • (2016)Looking at the Representations in our MindProceedings of the Sixth Workshop on Beyond Time and Errors on Novel Evaluation Methods for Visualization10.1145/2993901.2993914(96-103)Online publication date: 24-Oct-2016
    • (2011)Requirement-Driven Evaluation of Remote ERP-System SolutionsProceedings of the 2011 IEEE 34th Software Engineering Workshop10.1109/SEW.2011.14(57-66)Online publication date: 20-Jun-2011

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