05-899D: Human Aspects of Software Development (HASD)

Note: Be sure to sign up for the “D” section—different courses are using the same course number.
 (HCII page for this course.)

New course!

See our Comprehensive Readling List.

Instructor: Professor Brad Myers, Human Computer Interaction Institute
Co-Instructor: Thomas LaToza, Institute for Software Research

12 units, Spring, 2011.

Times: Tuesdays and Thursdays from 12noon to 1:20 p.m. in NSH 3002.
(Note: if you want to take this course, but have a conflict with the time, let me know.)

Overview

This course will investigate the research on the human aspects of software development. The focus will primarily be on individual software development, such as what is known about people programming, debugging, testing, and understanding code. We will cover studies of programmers, and tools that have been shown to be effective for programmers. This will include what is sometimes called "Empirical Studies of Programmers" and the "Psychology of Programmers". Topics that are associated with Human Aspects of Software Engineering, such as the study of processes for management, studies of large groups of programmers, and software specifications, will only be covered lightly.

This will be a seminar course, primarily intended for PhD students and other students interested in research on this topic. The course readings will mostly be important research articles on the various topics. We will also draw from the book: Making Software: What Really Works, and Why We Believe It, edited by Andy Oram and Greg Wilson (2011). Most of the classes will be led by the students. Each student will choose two topics, and will read the relevant literature and present the material to the rest of the class. Grading will be based on students' presentations, participation in class, and three projects. The projects will be performed in small groups, and will entail a field study of some aspect of software development, the creation of a new tool for developers (such as a new plugin for Eclipse), and a lab comparison study of the tool.  (See the complete homework description below.) The projects may result in publishable papers.

Readings and Detailed Topics

Maintained on a shared GoogleDoc.

Class and Lecture Schedule (evolving)

Homeworks and Grading

Each student in the course will be responsible for presenting lectures on two (2) topics. The topics will be divided up and a schedule made up near the beginning of the course. Presenting each topic will involve: reading the material the instructors have selected, augmenting it with any additional material you think is relevant, selecting one or two articles that best represent the topic that the rest of the class should read (this must be one 1 week before your topic is presented), preparing an 80-minute presentation including slides that synthesizes the material, compare and contrast the studies/systems, if the topic includes studies and systems then discuss the relationships, and in general, summarizes the entire area, including summarizing all of the important papers, and leading the in-class discussion on that topic. See the in-class evaluation form.

For the other homeworks, the students will form groups of two or three people. Each group will be responsible for three (3) projects, plus a planning document. All members of the group should work on all projects:

  1. Select groups and propose three projects: Due: Tuesday, February 1, 2011
    This will be a short document listing the group members, and discussing the initial idea about the three projects that your group will do, as described below. This report should also include a survey of related work about what is already known about this area. This document should include your initial plans for the field study, the tool and the lab study. We expect that about 5 pages single spaced should be sufficient for this document. The instructors will use this to make sure that all groups are doing different topics, and that the topics seem reasonable.
  2. Study of Existing Practice: Due: Thursday, February 24, 2011, extended: Friday, March 4, 2011
     This will be a study of how programmers perform some existing practice, or some existing problem that programmers have. There are at least four kinds of exploratory studies to choose from: (1) Field study, like a Contextual Inquiry, (2) Survey of a group of people, (3) Artifact study of existing corpuses, or (4) exploratory lab study, where you instruct participants on what to do. Our preference is for you to do a Contextual Inquiry or some other kind of field study, possibly augmented by a survey, but will consider the other options.  The target audience can be novice, end-user or professional programmers. Deliverables will be a written report and an in-class presentation (including slides) about the results.
  3. Prototype of a New Tool: Due: Tuesday, April 5, 2011
    This will be a new tool or language for example an Eclipse plug-in or a stand-alone tool, that aims to help with some aspect of programming. It might address the problem investigated in your study. Deliverables will be the working prototype, a video of your demonstration of it working, a short written report describing the system and any interesting features, and an in-class presentation of the results.
  4. Lab study comparing two versions: Due: Thursday, April 28, 2011
    This will be a lab study comparing (at least) two versions, or two different systems. For example, you might compare your tool or language against the way that programmers work today. Deliverables will be a final report discussing the study (if all projects are about the same system, you can write the final report like a submitted paper, including all previous material in one comprehensive report), and an in-class presentation of the results.

Grading

The grading will be allocated approximately as follows:

In-class Lecture 1 (eval form) 15%
In-class Lecture 2 15%
Planning document 10%
Study of Existing Practice 20%
Prototype 20%
Lab study 15%
In-class participation 5%
Total 100%

Topic Summary

The specific topics covered will be developed in collaboration with the students in the class, based on mutual interest. See the final list. A preliminary list of topics includes: