The Natural Programming Project is working on making programming languages and environments easier to learn, more effective, and less error prone. We are taking a human-centered approach, first studying how people perform their tasks and then designing languages and environments around people's natural tendencies. We focus on all kinds of programming, including professional programmers, novice programmers who are trying to learn to be experts, and end users, who program to support other jobs or hobbies, such as multimedia authoring, simulations, teaching, prototyping, and other activities supported by computing.

We're affiliated with the EUSES consortium, which is a group of universities working on end-user software engineering.

Ongoing Projects

Azurite

Adding Zest to Undoing and Restoring Improves Textual Exploration
A plug-in for Eclipse that facilitates backtracking (undoing) of code.

Graphite

GRAphical Palettes Help Instantiate Types in the Editor.
A plug-in for Eclipse that supports type-specific palettes that help users enter code more easily.

Fluorite

Full of Low-level User Operations Recorded In The Editor.
A plug-in for Eclipse that records the low-level user and Eclipse events to enable analysis.

WebCrystal

Plugin for Firefox that helps you understand how parts are implemented.

Euklas

Eclipse Users' Keystrokes Lessened by Attaching from Samples
(Eclipse plugin for JavaScript, that helps with copying and pasting code.)

FireCrystal

Firefox extension to show the html and Javascript code responsible for behaviors on web pages

Calcite

Construction And Language Completion Integrated Throughout Eclipse

Fact-finding

Helping developers discover properties of software architectures

Update Paths

Helping developers discover when code is executed

API Usability

Informing API design choices through empirical studies. Includes sub-project on eSOA API Usability.

Jadeite

Java Documentation with Extra Information Tacked-on for Emphasis.

Apatite

Associative Perusing of APIs That Identifies Targets Easily.

Euclase

End User Centered Language, APIs, System, and Environment. Understanding how interaction designers think about interaction

Studies of software development

By novices, end users, professionals and everyone between

Recent Projects

Whyline for Java

a Workspace that Helps You Link Instructions, Numbers and Events

Topes

A data model to help end-user programmers validate and manipulate data

Jasper

A Java Aid with Sets of Pertinent Elements for Recognition

Barista

Basic Abstractions for Rapidly Implementing Structured Text-editing Applications

Crystal

Clarifications Regarding Your Software using a Toolkit, Architecture, and Language

Mica

Makes Interfaces Clear and Accessible

Citrus

a language for Creating Interactive Tools that Reshape and Utilize Structure

Slate

a Spreadsheet Language that Accentuates Type Errors

Whyline for Alice

a Workspace that Helps You Link Instructions, Numbers and Events

Past Projects

Hands

Human-centered Advances for Novice Development of Software

Silver

Scripting an Intelligent Video Editor

Lapis

Lightweight Structured Text Processing