Cognitive Dimensions Questionnaire for Evaluating API Usability

Chamila Wijayarathna

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Oct 25, 2016, 9:49:41 AM10/25/16

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Hello all,

I am a research student working on improving the usability of security APIs. In my research, I am planning to conduct usability evaluation for security APIs using the methodology Clarke (2004) described. However, when I searched through literature, I could only found parts of the questionnaire, but could not found the complete questionnaire.

If there is a generic Cognitive Dimensions based questionnaire for evaluating usability of APIs, can someone please point me into that.

Thanks in advance.

Best Regards!

Chamila

S. Clarke. Measuring api usability. Doctor Dobbs Journal, 29(5):S1-S5, 2004
S. Clarke, “Evaluating a new programming language,” in 13th Workshop of the Psychology of Programming Interest Group, 2001, pp. 275–289

Steven Clarke

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Oct 25, 2016, 9:57:41 AM10/25/16

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Hi Chamila,

Here is a copy of the questionnaire I used for evaluating API usability. Bear in mind that I reworded some of the cognitive dimensions due to perceptions at the time that the original names might not easily interpreted by the teams I was working with at Microsoft. This was not backed up by any empirical evidence at the time, I did it just based on my experience to the reactions I received when I first introduced the cognitive dimensions at Microsoft.

I’ve also attached the ratings sheet we used when interviewing developers using this questionnaire. We would plot their responses regarding each of the dimensions during the interview on the sheet.

Thanks,

Steven

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CDQuestionnaire-sc.doc

Cognitive Dimension Rating Sheet.docx

Brad Myers

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Oct 25, 2016, 11:58:14 AM10/25/16

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Y’all may also be interested in the website www.apiusability.org. Steven, can I put your materials on it?

Jeff Stylos and I also recently wrote a summary article about the area:

Brad A. Myers and Jeffrey Stylos, "Improving API Usability", Communications of the ACM, vol 59, No. 6, June, 2016, pp. 62-69, Official ACM DL entry; html or local pdf.