If XML is so easy, how come its so hard? The usability of editing - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Outline Background Perceptions and requirements Software analysis Summary of results If XML is so easy, how come it’s so hard? The usability of editing software for structured documents Peter Flynn Human Factors Research Group Department of Applied Psychology University College Cork Extreme Markup Conference Montr´ eal, QC Late-breaking: 8 August 2006 Peter Flynn If XML is so easy, how come it’s so hard?

Outline Background Perceptions and requirements Software analysis Summary of results Background 1 Perceptions and requirements 2 Software analysis 3 Summary of results 4 Peter Flynn If XML is so easy, how come it’s so hard?

Outline Background Perceptions and requirements Software analysis Summary of results If XML is so easy, how come it’s so hard? ‘I want to write a document. . . ’ Peter Flynn If XML is so easy, how come it’s so hard?

Outline Background Perceptions and requirements Software analysis Summary of results If XML is so easy, how come it’s so hard? ‘I want to write a document. . . ’ ‘. . . a text document. . . ’ Peter Flynn If XML is so easy, how come it’s so hard?

Outline Background Perceptions and requirements Software analysis Summary of results If XML is so easy, how come it’s so hard? ‘I want to write a document. . . ’ ‘. . . a text document. . . ’ ‘. . . and it was suggested I use XML.’ Peter Flynn If XML is so easy, how come it’s so hard?

Outline Background Perceptions and requirements Software analysis Summary of results If XML is so easy, how come it’s so hard? ‘I want to write a document. . . ’ ‘. . . a text document. . . ’ ‘. . . and it was suggested I use XML.’ ‘I don’t want to be bothered with markup. . . ’ Peter Flynn If XML is so easy, how come it’s so hard?

Outline Background Perceptions and requirements Software analysis Summary of results If XML is so easy, how come it’s so hard? ‘I want to write a document. . . ’ ‘. . . a text document. . . ’ ‘. . . and it was suggested I use XML.’ ‘I don’t want to be bothered with markup. . . ’ ‘. . . it just has to look right. . . ’ Peter Flynn If XML is so easy, how come it’s so hard?

Outline Background Perceptions and requirements Software analysis Summary of results If XML is so easy, how come it’s so hard? ‘I want to write a document. . . ’ ‘. . . a text document. . . ’ ‘. . . and it was suggested I use XML.’ ‘I don’t want to be bothered with markup. . . ’ ‘. . . it just has to look right. . . ’ ‘. . . and do The Right Thing. . . ’ Peter Flynn If XML is so easy, how come it’s so hard?

Outline Background Perceptions and requirements Software analysis Summary of results If XML is so easy, how come it’s so hard? ‘I want to write a document. . . ’ ‘. . . a text document. . . ’ ‘. . . and it was suggested I use XML.’ ‘I don’t want to be bothered with markup. . . ’ ‘. . . it just has to look right. . . ’ ‘. . . and do The Right Thing. . . ’ ‘. . . automatically.’ Peter Flynn If XML is so easy, how come it’s so hard?

Outline Background Perceptions and requirements Software analysis Summary of results If XML is so easy, how come it’s so hard? ‘I want to write a document. . . ’ ‘. . . a text document. . . ’ ‘. . . and it was suggested I use XML.’ ‘I don’t want to be bothered with markup. . . ’ ‘. . . it just has to look right. . . ’ ‘. . . and do The Right Thing. . . ’ ‘. . . automatically.’ ‘Oh, and it has to look like Word . . . ’ Peter Flynn If XML is so easy, how come it’s so hard?

Outline Background Perceptions and requirements Software analysis Summary of results Sounds familiar? Usability of editing software for structured text Large, complex, reusable, multi-purpose, robust, long-lived, etc Why does it have to be so ‘difficult’? What do authors expect? Do we have the right interface paradigms? Peter Flynn If XML is so easy, how come it’s so hard?

Outline Background Perceptions and requirements Software analysis Summary of results Acknowledgments Part of doctoral research at the Human Factors Research Group at UCC Thanks are due to the many contributors from the XML, L A T EX, and related communities And to Google for extended access to the Usenet archives Peter Flynn If XML is so easy, how come it’s so hard?

Outline Background Perceptions and requirements Software analysis Summary of results Background Document markup has its origins in plain text Human-readable and machine-processable Markup is visible along with the text content Signal or escape are characters used to delimit markup Markup can be nested hierarchically Markup can be declared, designed for relevance Portable, programmable, documented Peter Flynn If XML is so easy, how come it’s so hard?

Outline Background Perceptions and requirements Software analysis Summary of results File format vs the interface Markup formats originally related to a product (eg RUNOFF ) Declarable markup can be handled by many different processors Markup can be hidden or revealed Markup hierarchy can be displayed Markup can be edited and manipulated like text Peter Flynn If XML is so easy, how come it’s so hard?

Outline Background Perceptions and requirements Software analysis Summary of results What You See Is What You Get Permanently hidden inline binary markup Synchronous typographic display Formatter is part of the editor Markup is hidden Unpatterned, can occur arbitrarily Largely proprietary origins (WP , DTP) ‘a system in which content during editing appears very similar to the final product’ (Wikipedia) Peter Flynn If XML is so easy, how come it’s so hard?

Outline Background Perceptions and requirements Software analysis Summary of results Obscurity of hidden markup How can contiguous markup boundaries be made unambiguous if the cursor position will not change when they are traversed? Peter Flynn If XML is so easy, how come it’s so hard?

Outline Background Perceptions and requirements Software analysis Summary of results Obscurity of hidden markup How can contiguous markup boundaries be made unambiguous if the cursor position will not change when they are traversed? How should markup which bears no typographic distinction be made accessible for editing? Peter Flynn If XML is so easy, how come it’s so hard?

Outline Background Perceptions and requirements Software analysis Summary of results Obscurity of hidden markup How can contiguous markup boundaries be made unambiguous if the cursor position will not change when they are traversed? How should markup which bears no typographic distinction be made accessible for editing? How should the author indicate a quality or identity which depends on correct markup? Peter Flynn If XML is so easy, how come it’s so hard?

Outline Background Perceptions and requirements Software analysis Summary of results Obscurity of hidden markup How can contiguous markup boundaries be made unambiguous if the cursor position will not change when they are traversed? How should markup which bears no typographic distinction be made accessible for editing? How should the author indicate a quality or identity which depends on correct markup? How should an editing program react to an author’s keystrokes? Peter Flynn If XML is so easy, how come it’s so hard?

Outline Background Perceptions and requirements Software analysis Summary of results Perceptions and requirements Document models: internal, external ‘the parse tree that results from parsing an encoded representation of a document’ (Close, 2003) ‘a library and API that supports working with a document representation’ (Sosnoski, 2001) ‘a description of the structuring rules of a document class’ (Brugger et al. , 1997) When the markup is hidden, there is a conflation of appearance and structure Peter Flynn If XML is so easy, how come it’s so hard?

Outline Background Perceptions and requirements Software analysis Summary of results Perceptions and requirements Pilot survey of expert users Tend to recommend software familiar to user (67%) rather than appropriate Own use: XMetaL (47%), Emacs (27%), Epic (13%) No editors had specific features regarded as specially useful above the conventional ones Disliked interface clutter, crashing, lack of catalogs and inlined entities, incomplete styling, instability, poor typography Script/macro support regarded as hard to use Peter Flynn If XML is so easy, how come it’s so hard?

Outline Background Perceptions and requirements Software analysis Summary of results Perceptions Unquantified user demand for WYSIWYG Evidence from public requests XML and T EX mailing lists and Usenet newsgroups Recursively located each original post for any thread mentioning ‘editor’ (OP may not have used that term) Isolated those that were actually requesting editors Peter Flynn If XML is so easy, how come it’s so hard?

Outline Background Perceptions and requirements Software analysis Summary of results Requests for information about editors Rise in demand 1997–98 follows release of XML 1.0 (1996); following troughs and peaks are unexplained. Peter Flynn If XML is so easy, how come it’s so hard?