An Application-Programming Interface or API provides a set of program functions that can be used to build new applications. In this paper, we study how to use the expectation-confirmation theory (ECT) to identify API usability problems, and what obstacles a novice developer faces when learning a new API and its accompanying development tools. We conduct a study over the impact of using a visual editor on API usability and then use the expectation-confirmation theory to study perceptions about the API and the editor. We finally present a list of obstacles found in the study that can be used by others to create more usable APIs and development tools.
Irum Rauf (Åbo Akademi University), Pekka Perälä (Vaadin, JAMK University of Applied Sciences), Jouni Huotari (JAMK University of Applied Sciences), Ivan Porres (Åbo Akademi University): Perceived obstacles by novice developers adopting user interface APIs and tools
Presented at Visual Languages and Human-Centric Computing (VL/HCC), 2016 IEEE Symposium on, Cambridge