Abstract:
Spreadsheet language programs, which include commercial spreadsheets, are
among the most common form of software in use today. Unlike more "traditional"
forms of software however, spreadsheet language programs are created and
maintained by end-users with little or no programming experience. As a result, a
high percentage of these programs contain errors. Unfortunately, software
engineering research has for the most part ignored this problem. We have
developed a methodology that is designed to aid end-users in developing, testing,
and maintaining spreadsheet language programs. The methodology communicates
testing information and information about the impact of cell changes to users in a
manner that does not require an understanding of formal testing theory or the
behind the scenes mechanisms. In this thesis, we present empirical data about the
methodology's effectiveness resulting during a spreadsheet maintenance
experiment. The results show that, during maintenance end-users using our
methodology were more accurate in making changes and did a significantly better
job of validating their spreadsheets than end-users without the methodology.
