A Strategy-Centric Approach to the Design of End-User Debugging Tools

Abstract

End-user programmers’ code is notoriously buggy. This problem is amplified by the increasing complexity of end users’ programs. To help end users catch errors early and reliably, we employ a novel approach for the design of end-user debugging tools: a focus on supporting end users’ effective debugging strategies. This paper has two core contributions. We first demonstrate the potential of a strategy-centric approach to tool design by presenting StratCel, a strategy-based tool for Excel. Second, we show the benefits of this design approach: participants using StratCel found twice as many bugs as participants using standard Excel, they fixed four times as many bugs, and all this in only a small fraction of the time. Furthermore, this strategy-based approach helped the participants who needed it the most: boosting novices’ debugging performance near experienced participants’ improved levels. Finally, we reveal several opportunities for future research about strategy-based debugging tools.