Analysis of errors in interactive proof attempts

Abstract

The practical utility of interactive, user-guided, theorem proving depends on the design of good interaction environments, the study of which should be grounded in methods of research into human-computer interaction (HCI). This paper discusses the relevance of classifications of programming errors developed by the HCI community to the problem of interactive theorem proving. A new taxonomy of errors is proposed for interaction with theorem provers and its adequacy as a usability metric is assessed experimentally.