Using Visual Momentum to Explain Disorientation in the Eclipse IDE

We report on a field study about how software developers experience disorientation when using the Eclipse Java integrated development environment. We analyzed the data using the theory of visual momentum, identifying three factors that may lead to disorientation: the absence of connecting navigation context during program exploration, thrashing between displays to view necessary pieces of code, and the pursuit of sometimes unrelated subtasks.

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2006
• Where: VL
• Authors: Brian de Alwis, Gail C. Murphy
• Keywords: Developers Experience Disorientation, Integrated Development Environment, Languages, Unrelated Subtasks, VL 2006