Authors:
Carsten Radeck
and
Klaus Meißner
Affiliation:
Technische Universität Dresden, Germany
Keyword(s):
Mashup, Awareness, Inter Widget Communication, Generated Tutorials, End User Development, Assistance.
Related
Ontology
Subjects/Areas/Topics:
Internet Technology
;
Web Information Systems and Technologies
;
Web Services and Web Engineering
Abstract:
The mashup paradigm allows end users to build their own web applications by combining components in order to fulfill specific needs. Mashup development and usage are still cumbersome tasks for non-programmers, for instance, when it comes to understanding the composite nature of mashups and their functionality. Non-programmers may struggle to use components as intended, especially if the latter provide capabilities in combination, and may lack awareness for inter-widget communication (IWC). Prevalent mashup approaches provide no or limited concepts for these aspects, resulting in more or less successful trial and error strategies of users. In this paper, we present our proposal for assisting non-programmers to understand and leverage the functionality of components and their interplay in a mashup. Based on annotated component descriptions, interactive explanations and step-wise instructions are generated and presented directly in context of components’ user interface (UI). In addition
, active IWC is visualized to foster awareness of users. We describe the iterative design which led us from early approaches towards our current solution. The concepts are implemented in our mashup platform and evaluated by means of a user study. The results indicate that our solutions help non-programmers to better understand the functionality of composite web application (CWA).
(More)