Application of visual programming to Web mash up development

Abstract

The ongoing adoption of the latest Web development patterns such as AJAX is helping to enhance the user experience on the Web. Moreover, there is now API-based support from various vendors that allow seamless fusion of disparate data sources into a single application. However, the barrier for Web designers to integrate such features into their Web applications remains high. This hampers a wider proliferation of such novel Web applications. In this paper, we conduct an experiment to see whether visual programming is appropriate for allowing Web designers integrate the aforementioned features. For the experiment, we have developed a prototype, tentatively named WIPER that allows Web designers to incorporate pre-built JavaScript components into live Web pages using drag-and-drop. We combined rapid revision with usability testing to iteratively advance our prototype. Working with users, we have learned that with some targeted refinements, visual programming paradigm can be very effective in achieving our goal. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2007.