A Programming System for Children that is Designed for Usability

Citation:
J.F. Pane, "A Programming System for Children that is Designed for Usability," presented at the 7th Workshop on Empirical Studies of Programmers: Graduate Student Workshop, Alexandria, VA, October 24, 1997.

Abstract:
This paper proposes a new programming language and environment for children. This system will be designed to be easy to learn and use, without sacrificing the power necessary to create sophisticated programs that rival commercial software such as games and simulations. Throughout the design and refinement of this system, I will apply prior results from empirical studies of programmers and the psychology of programming, my own empirical studies about the ways that non-programmers naturally express solutions to programming tasks, and usability testing.

Full Paper:
ESPGradWorkshop.pdf (48 KB).