Integrated Development Environments (IDEs) lack effective support to browse complex relationships between source code elements. As a result, developers are often forced to exploit multiple user interface components at the same time, bringing the IDE into a complex, "chaotic" state. Keeping track of these relationships demands increased source code navigation and cognitive load, leading to productivity deficits documented in observational studies. Beyond small-scale studies, the amount and nature of the chaos experienced by developers in the wild is unclear, and more importantly it is unclear how to tame it. Based on a dataset of fine-grained interaction data, we propose several metrics to characterize and quantify the ``level of chaos'' of an IDE. Our results suggest that developers spend, on average, more than 30\% of their time in a chaotic environment, and that this may affect their productivity. To support developers, we devise and evaluate simple strategies that automatically alter the UI of the IDE. We find that even simple strategies may considerably reduce the level of chaos both in terms of effective space occupancy and time spent in a chaotic environment.

1. Taming the IDE
with fine-grained interaction data
Roberto Minelli, Andrea Mocci,
Romain Robbes, Michele Lanza
REVEAL @ Faculty of Informatics – Università della Svizzera italiana
PLEIAD @ Departamento de Ciencias de la Computación – University of Chile
@robertominelli

2. Footprints: History-rich tools for information foraging
A. Wexelblat, P. Maes
SIGCHI 1999, pp. 270–277
“The information path obtained from
navigation in an information space reveals
the user’s mental model of the system.”

3. An exploratory study of how developers seek, relate, and collect
relevant information during software maintenance tasks
A. J. Ko, B. A. Myers, M. J. Coblenz, H. H. Aung
IEEE TSE 2006, vol. 32, no. 12, pp. 971–987
“Developers spend 35% of their time
navigating the source code in search
for information.”

5. tabs-based

6. tabs-based
windows-based

7. tabs-based
windows-based novel paradigms

8. Autumn Leaves: Curing the Window Plague in IDEs
D. Roethlisberger, O. Nierstrasz, S. Ducasse
WCRE 2009, 237–246
“Developers are forced to open views on
numerous source artifacts […], leading to a
crowded workspace.”

9. How chaotic
is the UI of the IDE?

10. How chaotic
is the UI of the IDE?

11. Nonlinear dynamics and chaos.
J. M. T. Thompson and H. B. Stewart
John Wiley & Sons, 2002
DISCLAIMER
Our “chaos” has nothing to do
with “deterministic chaos”

12. developer IDE

13. developer IDE
navigate

14. developer IDE
edit

15. developer IDE
inspect

16. developer IDE
user input

17. developer IDE
user interface

18. developer
navigate
userinterface
userinput
edit
inspect
IDE
interaction
data

19. developer
navigate
userinterface
userinput
edit
inspect
IDE
I know what you did last summer:
An investigation of how developers spend their time
R. Minelli, A. Mocci, M. Lanza
ICPC 2015, pp. 25–35
DFlow
interaction
data

20. 1,631 sessions
17 developers
28' 22" avg. session duration
Dataset

21. 1,631 sessions
17 developers
28' 22" avg. session duration
>770h total time
40,140 # of windows
Dataset

22. 1,631 sessions
17 developers
28' 22" avg. session duration
>770h total time
40,140 # of windows
> 102h User Interface Time
> 595h Understanding Time
Dataset I know what you did last summer:
An investigation of how developers spend their time
R. Minelli, A. Mocci, M. Lanza
ICPC 2015, pp. 25–35

23. How chaotic
is the UI of the IDE?

24. Space Occupancy Metrics

25. Space Occupancy Metrics
Occupied
Free
Focus
Needed
Space Metrics

26. Space Occupancy Metrics
Occupied
Free
Focus
Needed
Space
Depth
Space Metrics Overlapping Metrics
Weighted

27. Space Occupancy Metrics

28. Space Occupancy Metrics
Screen
Space

29. Free
Space
Space Occupancy Metrics
Screen
Space

30. No
Overlapping
Free
Space
Space Occupancy Metrics
Screen
Space

31. No
Overlapping
Low
Overlapping
(Depth: 2)
Free
Space
Space Occupancy Metrics
Screen
Space

32. No
Overlapping
Low
Overlapping
(Depth: 2)
High
Overlapping
(Depth: 4)
Free
Space
Space Occupancy Metrics
Screen
Space

33. No
Overlapping
Low
Overlapping
(Depth: 2)
High
Overlapping
(Depth: 4)
Free
Space
Space Occupancy Metrics
Focus
Space
Screen
Space

34. Space Occupancy Metrics
+ +
+ +
+ +

35. Space Occupancy Metrics
Occupied
Free
Focus
Needed
Space
Depth
Space Metrics Overlapping Metrics
Weighted

36. Space Occupancy Metrics
Occupied
Free
Focus
Needed
Space
Depth
48.22%
51.78%
Space Metrics Overlapping Metrics
Weighted

37. Space Occupancy Metrics
Occupied
Free
Focus
Needed
Space
Depth
48.22%
51.78%
32.66%
Space Metrics Overlapping Metrics
Weighted

38. Space Occupancy Metrics
Occupied
Free
Focus
Needed
Space
Depth
48.22%
51.78%
32.66%
96.83%
Space Metrics Overlapping Metrics
Weighted

39. Space Occupancy Metrics
Occupied
Free
Focus
Needed
Space
Depth
48.22%
51.78%
32.66%
96.83%
20.95%
2.76
69.05%
Space Metrics Overlapping Metrics
Weighted

40. Chaos Levels

41. Chaos Levels
Comfy Ok

42. Chaos Levels
Comfy Ok HellMess

43. Chaos Levels
Comfy Ok HellMess
100%0%
: Needed Space

44. Chaos Levels
Comfy Ok HellMess
100%0%
: Needed Space
200%75%

45. Chaos Levels
Comfy Ok HellMess
: Results
11%
21%
17%
51%
51.04% 16.98% 21.11% 10.88%

46. Developers spend more than 30% of their time
in highly chaotic IDE configurations…

47. Developers spend more than 30% of their time
in highly chaotic IDE configurations…
so
what?

48. Correlation Analysis I know what you did last summer:
An investigation of how developers spend their time
R. Minelli, A. Mocci, M. Lanza
ICPC 2015, pp. 25–35
5%
8%
14%
70%

49. Correlation Analysis
vs.
I know what you did last summer:
An investigation of how developers spend their time
R. Minelli, A. Mocci, M. Lanza
ICPC 2015, pp. 25–35
11%
21%
17%
51%
Chaos Levels

50. Correlation Analysis
vs.
I know what you did last summer:
An investigation of how developers spend their time
R. Minelli, A. Mocci, M. Lanza
ICPC 2015, pp. 25–35
Comfy
Ok
-0.34
-0.04
11%
21%
17%
51%
Chaos Levels
not statistically significant
statistically significant

51. Correlation Analysis
vs.
I know what you did last summer:
An investigation of how developers spend their time
R. Minelli, A. Mocci, M. Lanza
ICPC 2015, pp. 25–35
Comfy
Ok
Mess
Hell
-0.34
-0.04
0.16
0.42
11%
21%
17%
51%
Chaos Levels
not statistically significant
statistically significant

52. Correlation Analysis
vs.
I know what you did last summer:
An investigation of how developers spend their time
R. Minelli, A. Mocci, M. Lanza
ICPC 2015, pp. 25–35
Comfy
Ok
Mess
Hell
-0.34
-0.04
0.16
0.42
Comfy
Ok
Mess
Hell
-0.27
0.05
0.11
0.26
11%
21%
17%
51%
Chaos Levels
not statistically significant
statistically significant

53. Developers spend more than 30% of their time
in highly chaotic IDE configurations…

54. Developers spend more than 30% of their time
in highly chaotic IDE configurations…
…and this impacts both
UI and understanding time!

55. How can we tame it?

56. Main IDE Windows

57. Main IDE Windows
Code browser
source code

58. Main IDE Windows
Code browser Debugger
source code

59. Main IDE Windows
Code browser Debugger Send / Implement
source code

60. Taming Strategies
Elision Layout

61. Elision Strategy

62. Elision Strategy

63. Layout Strategy
Screen
Space

64. Layout Strategy
Screen
Space

65. Taming Strategies in Practice
Screen
Space
Window
in focus

66. Taming Strategies in Practice
Elision
Screen
Space
Window
in focus

67. Taming Strategies in Practice
Layout
Screen
Space
Window
in focus

68. Chaos Levels
Comfy Ok HellMess
: Results
11%
21%
17%
51%
51.04% 16.98% 21.11% 10.88%

69. Chaos Levels
Comfy Ok HellMess
: Results
+17.73% -1.35% -8.08% -8.30%
3%
13%
16%
69%
11%
21%
17%
51%

70. Taming the IDE
with fine-grained interaction data

71. Taming the IDE
with fine-grained interaction data

72. Taming the IDE
with fine-grained interaction data

73. Taming the IDE
with fine-grained interaction data

74. Taming the IDE
with fine-grained interaction data

75. @robertominelli
Taming the IDE
with fine-grained interaction data
Roberto Minelli, Andrea Mocci,
Romain Robbes, Michele Lanza