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Integrated Personal Work Management in the TkSee Software Exploration Tool

Timothy C. LethbridgeUniversity of OttawaCOSET 2000, Limerick

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Goal of our research

Improve productivity of software engineers Primarily maintainers We have a 5-year working relationship with

Mitel Corporation

Research method Study SEs in the field Design tools to reduce inefficiencies Evaluate tool effectiveness

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Personal work management

Organizing and keeping track of Tasks and subtasks Information being used Overall mental model

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Data gathering

InterviewsSurveysObservation / ShadowingLogging tool useUsability evaluation

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Key observations

SEs perform much: Searching Manipulating search results

Copying and pastingKeeping to-do listsDeveloping mini-models

Context switchingInterruptionsDrilling down

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Difficulties observed

Switching among too many tools and windows Screen clutter Difficulty moving information from place to

place efficiently

Losing information found when searching Search must be re-done

Losing track of what they have to do

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TkSee schematic view

History

pane

Exploration

pane

Information

pane

selecting

here ...

... causes

redisplay

here

.... and

redisplay here

selecting

here ...

... causes

display

here

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Information pane

Virtually any kind of information Pluggable modules

Most commonly: Source code (static or being debugged) Definition and usage of data types or

variables

Searches can add items to the exploration pane

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Exploration pane

Graph The SE’s personal ‘sandbox’ Nodes are elements in the information pane

The selected node is always displayed‘Instant access’ to the state in which it was last viewed

Relationships depend on the type of nodesE.g. routine call, file inclusion, use of variableShown as indentation (we are developing a node-and-

arc alternative view)

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Exploration pane - continued

Queries cause new nodes to be added E.g. show files matching pattern

User can search among nodes, delete them, pick a subset etc.

Explorations can represent To-do lists Models of part of system design

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History pane

Hierarchy of explorations Created whenever a new exploration is initiated

(e.g. from a global search)Current history item has current exploration state

User can rename and delete Unlike in a web browser, backtracking and then

moving forward along a different branch does not cause loss of history

History nodes may represent tasks

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TkSee screen view

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Twin hierarchies

History and exploration panes are both hierarchies The explorations are heterogeneous

Advantages Keep related information together Show naturally hierarchical relationships

easily Easy to manipulate

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Comparisons & Evaluation

Vs. most other tools One-window, twin hierarchy model Focus on easy manipulation of search results,

juggling multiple tasks and building modelsPersonal Work Management

Evaluation is ongoing Usability evaluation first Then utility evaluation Initial informal results very positive