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Dependence tracing techniques for spreadsheets - Sohon Roy at Sems 2014
- 1. DEPENDENCE TRACING TECHNIQUES FOR SPREADSHEETS: AN INVESTIGATION SOHON ROY FELIENNE HERMANS
- 2. The earth as we see in plain sight
- 3. How it really is if we consider flight paths Interconnected!
- 4. Spreadsheet in plain sight
- 5. How the cells are interconnected
- 6. Why bother about dependence? “the most important information needs of professional spreadsheet users concern the structure of the formula dependencies” – Hermans et al. in 2011 20% problemsInformal Survey
- 7. Necessity is the mother of inventions But getting your paper accepted and published is the father?!
- 8. The gap
- 9. Not really the best way
- 10. Definitely not the best way
- 11. The gap
- 12. Hypothesis Better dependence tracing techniques or tools developed under scientific research is not adequately making it across to the industry to benefit real-life spreadsheet users.
- 13. Why the bottleneck between research and industry?
- 14. A metrics framework to measure user friendliness and effectiveness?
- 15. Any opportunity of improvement in the dependence tracing context?
- 16. Review of existing research papers •Relevance to the topic •Citations and references in related papers •Distinct and unique approach •Theory demonstrated through tool/prototype Limited scope for this paper S E L E C T
- 17. The papers Fluid Visualization Igarashi et al. 1998 3D Interactive Visualization Shiozawa et al. 1999 Visual Checking with VBA Chen et al. 2000 Spreadsheet Visualisation with Java Ballinger et al. 2003 Leveled Dataflow Diagrams Hermans et al. 2011
- 18. Findings 5 of 5 Innovative Ideas & Tool/Prototypes
- 19. Findings 2-Defunct 1-Subject to Compatibility Issue 2-Current (Java, C#) Technology Defunct Subject to Compatibility Current
- 20. Performance Testing Tested Unrealistic Test Not Tested Findings 2-Tested 1-Unrealistic Test (400 cells) 2-Not Tested
- 21. User Testing User Study No User Study Findings 1 of 5
- 22. Exposure to the Industry Available to the Industry Never exposed to the Industry Findings 1 of 5
- 23. Why the bottleneck between research and industry? Lack of motivation?
- 24. Why the bottleneck between research and industry? Difficult to scale up performance? Difficult to test?
- 25. Performance Testing Tested Unrealistic Test Not Tested Findings 2-Tested 1-Unrealistic Test (400 cells) 2-Not Tested
- 26. Why the bottleneck between research and industry? Difficult to scale up performance? Difficult to test?
- 27. A metrics framework to measure user friendliness and effectiveness? Apparently none.
- 28. User Testing User Study No User Study Findings 1 of 5
- 29. A metrics framework to measure user friendliness and effectiveness? To define and measure useability of spreadhsheet tools.
- 30. Any opportunity of improvement in the dependence tracing context?
- 32. Paper Published In Technique Prototype Prototype Comments Industrial Relevance 1.1998 Igarashi Fluid Visualization & Animation Pad++ (now defunct) and Python for UNIX Performance drastically worsens after 400 cells.No user study. No implementation plan given. Some ideological influence can be observed in MS Excel 2007 onwards. 2.1999 Shiozawa 3D Interactive lift-up operation OpenGL APIs and SLSC for UNIX None available. None. 3. 2000 Chen Visual indications superimposed on Excel sheets like arrows, highlights, shading. VBA plug-in for Excel. None available. No standardized definite influence. However similar techniques are used in ad hoc basis by expert spreadsheet users on individually or internally to organizations. 4.2003 Ballinger Different types of graphs and trees depicting spreadsheet dependency structure. Java tool for Excel workbooks. Successfully tested on a corpus of 259 Excel workbooks of undisclosed source.No user acceptance or comprehension study. Authors apparently did not carry forward their work on this project. 5.2011 Hermans Leveled dataflow diagrams C# toolkit that accepts Excel workbooks for input. Extensive user testing with 27 industrial spreadsheet users in a financial asset management Is currently a part of service offered by the company Infotron.nl
Editor's Notes
- This is somewhat decieving. Why? Because it does not illustrate how various parts of the earth is connected. What do I mean? For example the America is separated from Africa and Europe. But does that really mean that whatever happens in America has no effect on Europe or Africa?
- This picture however gives us a better insight! This is how the earth looks when the map is genrated out of flight paths of air lines! And here we can clearly see how the different parts of the earth is interconnected. Some are more connected than others! It gives a totally different outlook.
- As you see in this arch made of rocks, if you pull out one of the rocks, chances are the arch will collapse. Most spreadsheet models are very similar and vulnerable if you are not careful when you are changing the contents of your cells. As expected it is indeed one of the biggest challenges spreadsheet users face. The response is from spreadsheet users of a Dutch Financial company as described in Felienne Herman’s work in 2011. I also went to the offices of F1F9, the financial modelling company. I did an informal survey. Received a set of complaints of which 20% were related to this dependecne related... No other single unique are received as much percentage of complaints. This is why of course dependence tracing needs a lot of attention.
- So what do we do? We start making new tools and aids? No! We can’t ‘cause before that we have to check what is already existing!
- So what we found? We found that yes there is quite a considrable lot of research that has been done on this topic. But what we find in the industry? Lets take a look.... Excel... Excel... More Excel... EXCEL!! And what Excel offers?
- Excel’s only formula auditing feature. Blue arrows... But as you can see.. Not very intuitive and help ful... Also lot many clicks required... Then when they lie on the same row they all superimpose on each other and then it becomes really difficult to make out which is pointing where.
- And when it becoms like this? Oh boy!
- So what’s going on really here? It seems that as if some invisible monster is gobbling up the research before they can make their way to the industry! So we have to understand this monster and vanquish it!
- So we have our hypothesis.
- So what to do? Of course a careful review of exisitng litarature! But our scope is limited for presenting the study in one paper. So selected 5! And how did we select? We used these indicators.
- Now the time for the findings! So what did we find?
- Acceptance of newer ideas are more than follow up of previously published works? Pressure for innovation but no drive for implementation?
- Spreadsheet sizes have a very broad spectrum ranging from small to very very large.
- Spreadsheet sizes have a very broad spectrum ranging from small to very very large.
- Then it can be used to compare various tools with each other and can be established which is more effective for users.
- Then it can be used to compare various tools with each other and can be established which is more effective for users. And also useful when it is out of scope or not possible to do a full extensive user study. KPI (key performance indicators) can be useful to judge the worth of a tool particularly for the context of spreadsheets and effectiveness for users.
- Especially from the perspective of actually helping the real life spreadsheet users and not just in order to get your work published as a paper and then move on to other porjects. Or at least to ensure that the work you did can be helpful to users and is realistic enough so that it can be implemented even if by someone else.
- Make a summary of what we did and sign off confidently inviting for questions. So what we did? We percieved the importance of dependence tracing in spreadsheets; we wanted to do something about it so we dug up the existing research; then we saw that research was not going across to the industry; so we tried to answer some questions about that... And to answer we selected and did a comparative study of 5 papers... We found some interesting results and from that we drew some conclusive and some open answers to our questions. And now I would try to answer any questions you have!! :D