1. Discovering Computing: Perspectives of Web Designers Brian Dorn (now, University of Hartford) and Mark Guzdial (School of Interactive Computing)

2. Story Who are the graphics designers who start to program? What do they know and use of CS? What are they finding when they forage for information? Today’s Story What do they think of computer science? Why aren’t they in our classes? What do they want to know about computer science? Can we do better? ScriptAble: The Code Repository vs. the Case Library

3. The typical CS student: Future Software Engineer To produce reliable, robust, secure software. To work in interdisciplinary teams. To use appropriate design notations, such as UML. To work in multiple programming languages. 3

4. Who wants what CS has to offer? Computing is at the core of the modern society and modern economy. Many people recognize the value of education in computing. Including many of our students. However, only a few of them want to become professional software engineers. Why? Complex question. However, Computer Science has a much larger potential audience elsewhere. Estimates: ~13 million non-professional programmer/end-user programmers in US by 2012, vs. ~3 million professional software developers (Scaffidi, Shaw, & Myers, 2005) 4

5. An atypical CS student: Graphics/Web Designer To write programs to improve their efficiency, and to implement their dynamic (e.g., Web) designs. To do as little coding as possible. To learn about computing ideas in order to improve their process, but with a focus on people and creativity. Probably won’t work with professional software engineers 5

6. Who are these people? Mostly arts/media trained. Don’t consider themselves programmers. But do some significant automation of their process. 6 Dorn & Guzdial, ICER 2006

7. What gets used? What’s hard? 7 Dorn & Guzdial, CHI 2010 Dorn & Guzdial, ICER 2006

8. Where are they getting their CS knowledge? Mostly on-line: FAQs and other documentation Books (when applicable) Lots of examples and networking. Not so much classes 8 Dorn & Guzdial, CHI 2010

9. What are they finding in those examples? Some things that they find hard (e.g., exception handling). Little of some really important ideas. Objects Reuse of code Recursion 9 Dorn, Tew, & Guzdial, VL/HCC 2007

10. Today’s Story: Why don’t they come to our classes? Two key questions: What role does computing play in the career paths of these designers? How do these designers learn new information about computing, and are there topics related to programming that they wish to know more about? 10

11. Method Interview study: Recruitment via email through “Meetup” groups 12 participants (compensated with $15USD gift card): 5 female, 7 male Conducted thematic analysis Identified common patterns, Repeated but not necessarily prevalent. Coded first by top-down topic (e.g., job duties, use of Photoshop), then inductively for emergent categories. Second phase refined with sub-codes. 11

12. Participants 2-13 years PhotoShop experience, 2 months to 15 years scripting/programming. Self report of scripting expertise from 1-5: 3.21 All knew more than one language 10 had degrees (5) Visual communications, Animation, Internet Programming (1) CS Rest not obviously relevant, e.g., humanities, theology, packaging engineering. Job titles: Web Developers Interactive Animator or Designer/Developer (2) Programmer 12

13. Results of Thematic Analysis 1. Participants expressed their perceptions of traditional computing careers and those who choose such careers. 2. Participants commented on their personal experiences in computer science classrooms. 3. Participants shared their excitement about working with the Web and the power that programming affords. 4. Lastly, while reflecting on what they would like to know more about, several participants relayed a desire for knowledge of topics that are traditionally part of the CS curriculum. 13

14. What do software engineers do? Answer: The Boring Stuff. P2: I was able to take different samples from different places and instead of just being let's say an MIS major, or computer science major, you know it's—you're not going to be front-end anything with computer science. You're going to be back-end everything. P4: I think as a front-end developer, you focus more on the design and the usability, and you're focusing more on the audience. And then on the back-end I think you're focused on more, these are like the software developers. And they're programming something, and they don't really see what it's gonna look like; they're just making it work. 14

15. Who is in CS? Like Yardi and Bruckman (ICER 2007), participants held negative stereotypes of those in CS: P2: I went to a meeting for some kind of programmers, something or other. And they were OLD, and they were nerdy, and they were boring! And I'm like, this is not my personality. Like I can't work with people like that. And they worked at like IBM, or places like that. They've been doing, they were working with Pascal. And I didn’t…I couldn't see myself in that lifestyle for that long. P5: I don't know a whole ton of programmers, but the ones I know, they enjoy seeing them type up all these numbers and stuff and what it makes things do. Um, whereas I just do it, to get it done and to get paid. To be honest. The design aspect is what really interests me a lot more. 15

16. Why don’t they take CS classes? P7: I started out in computer science, but didn't like it at all. The fact that I wasn't learning anything new. I took an intro to programming course, and then I talked to some other people in the program and it was all repetition and I guess there wasn't any really new. So you weren't really learning any concepts. You were learning the languages, and I didn't like that at all. So that's why I left… P7: I'm looking for more concepts instead of examples I guess. I think the, my problem with books was the same thing. They're teaching more of a language than the concepts, and so I just want a place where I can learn the concepts and that's it. And I really can't find that, you know? It's either you learn a language and you hope to find out about the concepts, but you never really do. 16

17. They are not afraid of coding “What interests you about web design?” P12: The coding! I don't like to code. But the things that the code can do is amazing, like you can come up with this and voila, you know, it's there. Javascript for one. The plugins and stuff. I think that's very interesting, intriguing and stuff. Because I mean like the code is just, there's so much you can do with code and stuff. It's just like wow. 17

18. They want to know more P1: So I mean technology changes. So what I am ideally looking to focus on are like the foundation. The things that change less, you know what I'm saying? Like computer science um, theory, you know I'm saying I mean? That kind of like, it's applicable to what I do, and it's not so constantly shifting. P10: I was the kind of programmer that could make stuff work. But I didn't really have solid understandings. At one point I picked up a book on design patterns and I looked at it, and I was like that's really, that's really interesting…So I was like well I wanna keep doing that because it made me a better programmer. And it was more fun to program, and it was more thought provoking. 18

19. But aren’t sure it’s all that valuable P10:.A lot of people can just fly airplanes..But if you put them in an unusual situation, and they don't understand it… I think programming's probably the same way. I've written classes and thought, wow I've just created a binary tree here. If I knew what I was doing when I was doing it because I had the academic understanding, then I'd probably look for a base class that's already been optimized, and I wouldn't have to rewrite it. So, that was a really long way of saying yes, I think that an academic study would make me a better programmer, but not by a whole lot. 19

20. Conclusion of Today’s Story If we want to serve this audience, the same classes that we offer to software engineering-oriented students may not suffice. Perhaps new degree programs would serve this growing population. Key: This population does seek out learning opportunities. How can we provide more CS in their terms? (Vitamin-fortifying where they forage.) 20

21. Sneak Peek: Brian’s next step: ScriptAble They want examples. Can we give them examples plus CS concepts as a case library? Will they dislike the case library because it’s not just examples? Will they use it the same or differently? Will the concepts get in the way, or will they code the same? 21

22. ScriptAble (x 2): Cases vs. Repository 22

23. Bottomline: It works They like the cases. They code the same. Case-users learn the concepts. Brian defends August 19 23

24. Conclusions There are more people who don’t focus on computing, but need it, than those who major in computing. End-user programmers want CS has to offer. Graphics/Web designers are one group of these. They want what we have to offer, and they need it. But they avoid our classes. New work: We can meet them partway, by providing CS knowledge in a form they like to use. With thanks to US NSF for support of this work!

25. Slides to save… 25

26. Latest Taulbee-CRA numbers 26 2010 CRA Taulbee Survey of PhD-granting institutions