End user programming with personally meaningful objects

Abstract

This project investigated what a tangible programming environment could look like in which the program is an arrangement of personally meaningful objects. We identified Gestalt principles and Semiotic theory to be the theoretic foundations of our project. The Gestalt principles of good continuation and grouping by proximity are particularly relevant to our research. Following the Design Science Research methodology, four iterations each focussed on a different design aspect based on the outcome of the previous iterations. The fifth and final iteration combined learning from the previous designs and introduced the Gestalt principle of grouping by proximity to the programming environment. We concluded the project by deriving a model that reflects the programming environment constructs and the relationships between these.