Improving Usability of Software Process Programs

Williams College, Williamstown MA

Investigators

Abstract

Proposal Number: CCR-9988254 PI: Lerner, Barbara S. Institution: Williams College Title: Improving Usability of Software Process Programs The goal of software process programming is to encode software processes in a language that is amenable to formal analysis and execution. By executing a software process, the quality, cost, and timeliness of software products should improve. While process programming languages can describe processes accurately, organizations do not execute process programs to guide process execution. One impediment to the adoption of process program execution is that little attention has been paid to user interface issues. The research involves developing extensions to process programming languages, developing a style for more usable processes, and addressing issues of how to make a process program usable to both novice and experienced users. Extensions allow re-execution of parts of a process to try alternative approaches, dynamic error handling, and customized user interfaces. The extensions provide more flexibility to process users. This flexibility is balanced against the demands of the process to guarantee that the quality, cost, and timeliness goals of the process are not compromised. The research investigates this tradeoff, balancing the programmability of the process language against the usability of the resulting processes, striving to maintain the benefits of process programming while making their execution more acceptable to the user community.