Assisting Engineers in Switching Artifacts by using Task Semantic and Interaction History

RSSE’10, Cape Town,  South Africa, Mai 2010  Assis$ng Engineers in  Switching Ar$facts   by using Task Seman$cs  and Interac$on History Walid Maalej  and Alexander Sahm  Technische Universität München, Germany 

Execu$ve Summary  1  Current desktop environments lack the support for  switching between ar6facts during engineers’ work  2  We propose a context‐aware switching approach  based on task seman6cs and interac6on history  © W. Maalej, Mai 2010  Assis$ng Engineers in Switching Ar$facts   2

Outline  1  The Switching Problem  2  Our Context‐Aware Approach  3  The System: Switch!   4  Preliminary Evalua$on and Outlook  © W. Maalej, Mai 2010  Assis$ng Engineers in Switching Ar$facts   3 

Example of Tools and Ar$facts Used in a Bug  Fixing Scenario (iPhone App)  © W. Maalej, Mai 2010  Assis$ng Engineers in Switching Ar$facts   4

© W. Maalej, Mai 2010  Assis$ng Engineers in Switching Ar$facts   5

Postponed Tasks Lead to Even More Windows   © W. Maalej, Mai 2010  Assis$ng Engineers in Switching Ar$facts   6

© W. Maalej, Mai 2010 

Current Desktop Environments Have Four  Shortcomings  Windows of different tasks  The context of previous  are mixed  sessions is lost  Task irrelevant windows  Locate the ar6facts when  create a screen cluAer  resuming tasks  The   Switching  Problem Switching between windows  Different workflows for  instead of ar$facts  open and closed ar$facts  Mul6‐layer switching: first  Check if the ar6fact is open,  the windows then the ar6fact  if not: find it, open it  More details: W. Maalej, Task‐First or Context‐First? Tool Integra6on Revisited. In IEEE/ACM ASE 2009  © W. Maalej, Mai 2010  Assis$ng Engineers in Switching Ar$facts   8

The Goal is to Assist Engineers Switching  Between Ar$facts   Engineers can  The system  The ar6fact is  easily select the  recommends  shown no maAer  ar6fact from the  ar6facts needed  whether  it is  set of  next  open of closed recommenda6ons  1  2  3  Detect and use engineer’s context  © W. Maalej, Mai 2010  Assis$ng Engineers in Switching Ar$facts   10

What is Engineer’s Context?  Task  Interac6on  Seman6cs  History  Context   (Universal  (Personal  Dimension)   Dimension)   © W. Maalej, Mai 2010  Assis$ng Engineers in Switching Ar$facts   11

Task Seman$cs (Universal Dimension)   Why? •  A classifica$on of soXware  engineering tasks (bug  fixing, implementa6on,  •  To model tool types and  specifica6on, modeling,  ar$fact types and associate  collabora6on…)  them to task types  •  A shared common  •  Example: A tes6ng tool and  understanding of each task  test documents are rather  type (ontology)  used during tes6ng tasks  than during modeling tasks  What? © W. Maalej, Mai 2010  Assis$ng Engineers in Switching Ar$facts   12

Interac$on History (Personal Dimension)   Why? •  The engineer’s interac6on in  her workplace (desktop  environment)  •  To model the personal  switching habits and need  •  Individual work habits  of engineers  •  Preferred tools  •  Example: An engineer  •  Preferred ar6facts  maintains a To‐do list in text  document instead in task  management system  What? © W. Maalej, Mai 2010  Assis$ng Engineers in Switching Ar$facts   13

Overall Architecture   Switch!  © W. Maalej, Mai 2010  Assis$ng Engineers in Switching Ar$facts   15

Overall Recommenda$on Process   1  2   Find suitable Calculate the  ar$fact types  relevance of  based on task  each ar$fact  seman$cs  to switch to  © W. Maalej, Mai 2010  Assis$ng Engineers in Switching Ar$facts   16

Recommenda$on Heuris$cs   Frequency  The usage frequency of an artifact by the engineer The 6me in seconds the usage  Dura$on   of an ar6fact by the engineer  The number of switches  Switched To  between two ar6facts  The relevance of the ar6fact  Relevance  for this switch  © W. Maalej, Mai 2010  Assis$ng Engineers in Switching Ar$facts   17

UI Principle 1: Group Tools by Purposes   © W. Maalej, Mai 2010  Assis$ng Engineers in Switching Ar$facts   18

UI Principle 3: Ar$facts Clickable by Mouse and  Keyboard   © W. Maalej, Mai 2010  Assis$ng Engineers in Switching Ar$facts   20

Outline  1  The Switching Problem  2  Our Context‐Aware Approach  3  The System: Switch!   4  Preliminary Evalua$on and Outlook  © W. Maalej, Mai 2010  From Work To Word  21 

Preliminary Evalua$on  •  Internal use for currently supported task types  (work in progress)  Internal  evalua$on of  •  Switch! Supports bug ﬁxing, tes6ng and  Switch!  documen6ng  prototype  •  Current version handles source code, PDFs,  emails, text documents, and web pages  •  Paper prototype experiment  Paper  •  Created from printed Switch! user interface  prototype  experiment  •  Conducted with 7 experienced soXware  engineers (from Equinux & MacInTUM)  © W. Maalej, Mai 2010  Assis$ng Engineers in Switching Ar$facts   22 

Paper Prototype ‐ Findings   1  Subjects conﬁrmed the switching problem and appreciated our  context‐aware approach (5 of 7 subjects would use Switch!)  2  Subjects needed to get used to the user interface concepts (avg. <  5 min.)  3  Subjects wanted to understand recommenda6on ra$onale  4  Most subjects had privacy concerns due to the system wide  context observa6on  © W. Maalej, Mai 2010  Assis$ng Engineers in Switching Ar$facts   24

Conclusion and Future Work  Extend Switch! to  Improve  Make privacy and  other task types and  recommenda6ons  usability a ﬁst order  evaluate it in  by detec6ng the  concern in context‐ industrial seangs  task change  aware recommenda6on  3  4  5  Developers encounter  Our context‐aware approach  frequent problems while  seems to be appropriate for  switching between ar6facts  addressing switching problems  1  2  © W. Maalej, Mai 2010  Assis$ng Engineers in Switching Ar$facts   25

Feedback, Ques$ons, Sugges$ons  and Collabora$on are Welcomed!  Walid Maalej   Alexander Sahm  TUM  TUM  maalejw@cs.tum.edu  sahm@cs.tum.edu   hAp://TeamWeaver.org  © W. Maalej, Mai 2010  Assis$ng Engineers in Switching Ar$facts   26

Assisting Engineers in Switching Artifacts by using Task Semantic and Interaction History

by Walid Maalej on May 05, 2010

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Assisting Engineers in Switching Artifacts by using Task Semantic and Interaction History Presentation Transcript