Fast, Accurate Creation of Data Validation Formats by End-User Developers

  • Authors:
  • Chris Scaffidi;Brad Myers;Mary Shaw

  • Affiliations:
  • Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh PA 15217;Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh PA 15217;Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh PA 15217

  • Venue:
  • IS-EUD '09 Proceedings of the 2nd International Symposium on End-User Development
  • Year:
  • 2009

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Abstract

Inputs to web forms often contain typos or other errors. However, existing web form design tools require end-user developers to write regular expressions ("regexps") or even scripts to validate inputs, which is slow and error-prone because of the poor match between common data types and the regexp notation. We present a new technique enabling end-user developers to describe data as a series of constrained parts, and we have incorporated our technique into a prototype tool. Using this tool, end-user developers can create validation code more quickly and accurately than with existing techniques, finding 90% of invalid inputs in a lab study. This study and our evaluation of the technique's generality have motivated several tool improvements, which we have implemented and now evaluate using the Cognitive Dimensions framework.