GUI Based System for Effortless Program Visualization Creation Using Time Series Information

Abstract

In this paper, we describe a system that effortlessly creates program visualization (PV) by incorporating time-series information into a graphical user interface (GUI) system for PV creation. Although several PV systems have been developed, only a few have been introduced or used continuously in actual classes. One of the main obstacles to using PV systems in actual classrooms is the significant amount of time needed to integrate PV systems into actual educational setups. We developed a PV system called TEDViT and introduced it into several practical classes. While programming learning with TEDViT had a noticeable effect, the time required for PV customization was a non-trivial problem. To address this issue, GUI-based WYSIWYG PV editor would be a promising approach. However, many existing systems only support PV drawing. We believe that PVs should be more than mere drawings of data structures. They should be sequences of drawings with a program-execution process. This study has therefore developed a PV-creation support system that considers the continuity of drawings by incorporating time-series information into the GUI. An evaluation experiment was conducted to measure the time required to create PVs using our system. The results suggest that our GUI system noticeably improves the efficiency of PV creation.