| dc.description |
Until recently, research has not considered whether the design of end-user
programming environments, such as spreadsheets, multimedia authoring languages,
and CAD systems, affects males and females differently. As a result, we began
investigating how the two genders are impacted by end-user programming software
and whether attention to gender differences is important in the design of software.
Evidence from other domains, such as psychology and marketing, strongly suggests
that females process information and problem solve in very different ways than males.
This implies that without taking these differences into account in the design of
problem-solving software, the needs of half the population for whom the software is
intended are potentially being ignored. In fact, some research has shown that software
is unintentionally designed for males. Our research has uncovered several factors
which affect males and females differently as they engage in end-user programming.
The gender differences range from the effects of self-efficacy (a form of confidence)
on engagement with environment features to how males and females use "tinkering"
as part of their problem-solving strategy. We further investigate the effects of several
environment changes on both males' and females' problem solving. This research is
the first to both uncover what gender differences are relevant in end-user
programming environments and address how to account for these gender differences
in the design of such environments. |
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