Norman G. Vinson

An examination of software engineering work practices

This paper presents work practice data of the daily activities of software engineers. Four separate studies are presented; one looking longitudinally at an individual SE; two looking at a software engineering group; and one looking at company-wide tool usage statistics. We also discuss the advantages in considering work practices in designing tools for software engineers, and include some requirements for a tool we have developed as a result of our studies.

Design guidelines for landmarks to support navigation in virtual environments

Unfamiliar, large-scale virtual environments are difficult tonavigate. This paper presents design guidelines to ease navigationin such virtual environments. The guidelines presented here focuson the design and placement of landmarks in virtual environments.Moreover, the guidelines are based primarily on the extensiveempirical literature on navigation in the real world. A rationalefor this approach is provided by the similarities betweennavigational behavior in real and virtual environments.

Conceptual Effects on Representational Momentum

Four experiments addressed the question of whether prior knowledge of an objects typical movement in the real world affects the representation of motion. Representational momentum (RM) is the tendency for the short-term memory representation of an object to undergo a transformation corresponding to the objects trajectory. Using the standard RM paradigm, the RM elicited by objects with different typical motions was compared. Results indicate that conceptual knowledge about an objects typical motion affects the magnitude of RM and, as such, the representation of motion.

Ethical issues in empirical studies of software engineering

The popularity of empirical methods in software engineering research is on the rise. Surveys, experiments, metrics, case studies, and field studies are examples of empirical methods used to investigate both software engineering processes and products. The increased application of empirical methods has also brought about an increase in discussions about adapting these methods to the peculiarities of software engineering. In contrast, the ethical issues raised by empirical methods have received little, if any, attention in the software engineering literature. This article is intended to introduce the ethical issues raised by empirical research to the software engineering research community and to stimulate discussion of how best to deal with these ethical issues. Through a review of the ethical codes of several fields that commonly employ humans and artifacts as research subjects, we have identified major ethical issues relevant to empirical studies of software engineering. These issues are illustrated with real empirical studies of software engineering.

Are wikis usable

Wikis are simple to use, asynchronous, Web-based collaborative hypertext authoring systems which are quickly gaining in popularity. In spite of much anecdotal evidence to the effect that wikis are usable by non technical experts, this has never been studied formally. In this paper, we studied the usability of a wiki through observation and problem-solving interaction with several children who used the tool to collaboratively author hypertext stories over several sessions. The children received a minimal amount of instruction, but were able to ask for help during their work sessions. Despite minimal instruction, 5 out of 6 teams were able to complete their story. Our data indicate that the major usability problems were related to hyperlink management. We report on this and other usability issues, and provide suggestions for improving the usability of wikis. Our analysis and conclusions also apply to hypertext authoring with non wiki-based tools.

A comparative study of four input devices for desktop virtual walkthroughs

This paper presents the results of an experiment measuring the effect of four different input devices on overall task performance for desktop virtual walkthroughs. The input devices tested are: a keyboard, a mouse, a joystick and a gamepad. The results indicate that the participants completed the tasks in significantly less time and distance travelled with the mouse than with the three other input devices. The use of the mouse also significantly reduced the number of collisions, while the use of the gamepad resulted in significantly more collisions.

Effects of joystick mapping and field-of-view on human performance in virtual walkthroughs

Virtual environments are increasingly used to visit virtual mockups of proposed buildings or virtualized models of real sites or buildings. This paper presents the results of a human-machine interaction experiment aimed at measuring the effects of the real field-of-view (FOV) and of the use of a third joystick axis on human performance for navigation in virtual walkthroughs in a closed-space environment. The results indicate that neither the real FOV nor the third joystick axis significantly affect performance. There is however a perceived increase of immersion with the larger real FOV, and an added freedom of movement when a third axis of movement is mapped onto the joystick.

A Practical Guide to Ethical Research Involving Humans

The popularity of empirical methods in software engineering research is on the rise. Surveys, experiments, metrics, case studies, and field studies are examples of empirical methods used to investigate both software engineering processes and products. The increased application of such methods has also brought about an increase in discussions about adapting these methods to the particularities of software engineering. In contrast, the ethical issues raised by empirical methods have received little attention in the software engineering literature. In this chapter, we introduce four ethics principles of primary importance for conducting ethical research. We additionally discuss and provide examples of applying these principles in the context of ethics review.

Supporting Scientists' Everyday Work: Automating Scientific Workflows

An action research project involving scientists from the National Research Council Canada and the Institute for Ocean Technology analyzed difficulties in using software to collect data and manage processes. The project identified three requirements for increasing research productivity: ease of use for end users, managing scientific workflows, and facilitating software interoperability. On the basis of these requirements, the researchers developed Sweet, a software framework, to help automate scientific workflows.

Getting to the Source of Ethical Issues

Permission is granted to quote short excerpts and to reproduce figures and tables from this report, provided that the source of such material is fully acknowledged.