Human-Computer Interaction in Software Development

A subject area that I am very interested in, and the subject of my thesis, are the psychological and physical processes of programming and software development in general. My research rests at the intersection of software engineering, human-computer interaction, and cognitive psychology. My goal is to understand how programmers work, both cognitively and socially, and to create tools and processes that supplement and focus their mental processes in ways other than simply providing them with more information.

My thesis topic is "Intelligent User Notification to Expedite Awareness of Faulty Code." The research focuses on automated fault detection tools that can be integrated into programming environments to notify developers of problems while they are writing code. Research has shown that the sooner a developer knows of a fault, the cheaper it is to fix. However, programming is a cognitively complex activity, and interrupting developer's workflow and do more harm than good. I am studying developer decision-making behavior to create an intelligent fault notification system that more closely matches users' needs and reduces the cost of fixing faults.

View the list of my publications on human-computer interaction in software development.

Human-Computer Interaction in Software Development

Computer Science Education

Empirical Software Engineering