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RESEARCH PRODUCT

Experimental evaluation of hypertext access structures

subject

description

Transient hypertextual access structures (THASs) are temporary graphs formed automatically on the basis of the situation-dependent information needs of software engineers. The approach is implemented in the HyperSoft system, which is a hypertext-based software maintenance support tool. THASs highlight the relevant parts of the program and enable nonlinear browsing between them. The system also supports various graphical views whose elements are linked to the program text. This paper describes the effects of using these hypertextual structures in two separate experiments. The subjects of both experiments were computer science students (total N = 70). In both experiments, the subjects performed a series of sample information accesses from a C program. HyperSoft and conventional text browsing and searching were compared. The results from the two experiments are well in line with our hypothesis of the usefulness of the approach and with each other. The results indicate better task performance while using THASs as compared to using the information seeking capabilities of a conventional compiler environment. The difference is statistically significant (p > 0.001).