Understanding Trigger-Action Programs Through Novel Visualizations of Program Differences
Understanding Trigger-Action Programs Through Novel Visualizations of Program Differences
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DOI：
10.1145/3411764.3445567
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发表时间：
2021-05
期刊：
影响因子：
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通讯作者：
Valerie Zhao;Lefan Zhang;Bo Wang;M. Littman;Shan Lu;Blase Ur
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作者：
Valerie Zhao;Lefan Zhang;Bo Wang;M. Littman;Shan Lu;Blase Ur
触发操作编程（if-this-then-that规则）使非技术用户能够自动化服务和智能设备。随着用户的触发操作程序集的发展，用户必须推断类似程序之间的行为差异，例如原始程序和几个修改候选程序之间的差异，以选择满足其目标的程序。为了促进这一过程，我们共同设计了用户界面和底层算法，以突出触发-操作程序之间的差异。我们的新方法利用形式化方法来有效地识别和可视化程序结果或抽象属性的差异。我们还实现了一个传统的接口，它只显示规则本身的语法差异。在一项有107名参与者的在线实验中，新颖的界面更好地使参与者能够在复杂而现实的情况下选择符合预期目标的触发操作程序，而在使用显示语法差异的传统界面时，这种情况被证明是非常困难的。
Trigger-action programming (if-this-then-that rules) empowers non-technical users to automate services and smart devices. As a user’s set of trigger-action programs evolves, the user must reason about behavior differences between similar programs, such as between an original program and several modification candidates, to select programs that meet their goals. To facilitate this process, we co-designed user interfaces and underlying algorithms to highlight differences between trigger-action programs. Our novel approaches leverage formal methods to efficiently identify and visualize differences in program outcomes or abstract properties. We also implemented a traditional interface that shows only syntax differences in the rules themselves. In a between-subjects online experiment with 107 participants, the novel interfaces better enabled participants to select trigger-action programs matching intended goals in complex, yet realistic, situations that proved very difficult when using traditional interfaces showing syntax differences.