A study of end-user programming for geographic information systems

Abstract

This paper presents au empirical study of a programming by demonstration language for a geographic information system (GIS). The long-Term goal of the project is to enable non-Technical end users to exercise the capabilities of a GIS without having to learn the technical concepts that are embedded in most traditional GIS interfaces (Traynor & Williams, 1995). The programming by demonstration language is an extension of the Pursuit language introduced by Modugno for file management in the Macintosh Finder (Modugno, Corbett & Myers, 1996). The extensions permit the display of textual information in tables and of cartographic information on a map. The purpose of the preliminary study reported here was to determine whether programmers could read, edit, and create programs in the programming by demonstration language. Subjects' performance on the program comprehension tasks and the editing of simple programs was error free. Errors in the editing of more complex programs and in the program creation tasks indicate that some of the language constructs may need to be redesigned. Subjects' opinions of the programming by demonstration language were generally positive, as indicated by post-Test questionnaires. We conclude that programming by demonstration is a promising approach for a GIS interface.