Ph.D
Group : Human-Centered Computing
Designing and Programming Malleable Software.
Starts on 01/10/2016
Advisor : BEAUDOUIN-LAFON, Michel
Funding :
Affiliation : Université Paris-Saclay
Laboratory : LRI - Salle 435 salle de thèses
Defended on 03/12/2019, committee :
Michel Beaudouin-Lafon, Université Paris-Saclay (thesis supervisor)
Stéphane Conversy, ENAC-LII and Université de Toulouse (reviewer)
Jean-Daniel Fekete, INRIA (examiner)
Myriam Lewkowicz, Université de Technologie de Troyes (examiner)
Nicolai Marquardt, University College London (reviewer)
Jutta Treviranus, OCAD University (examiner)
Research activities :
Abstract :
User needs for software features and interfaces are diverse and changing, motivating the goal of making it as easy as possible for users themselves to change software, or to have it changed on their behalf in response to their developing needs. However, in my opinion, current approaches do not address this issue adequately: software engineering promotes flexible code, but in practice this does not help end-users effect change in their software.
End-user and live programming systems help users customize their interfaces by accessing and modifying the underlying source code. I take a different approach, seeking to maximize the kinds of modifications that can take place through regular interactions, e.g. direct manipulation of interface elements. I call this approach malleable software. To understand contemporary needs for and barriers to modifying software, I study how it is produced, maintained, adopted, and appropriated in a network of communities working with biodiversity data. I find that the mode of software production, i.e. the technologies and economic relations that produce software, is biased towards centralized, one-size-fits-all systems. This leads me to propose a long-term, interdisciplinary research program in reforming the tools of software development to create infrastructures for plurality.
These tools should help multiple communities collaborate without forcing them to consolidate around identical interfaces or data representations. Malleable software is one such infrastructure, in which interactive systems are dynamic constellations of interfaces, devices, and programs assembled at the site of use. My technological contribution is a reconstruction of the programming mechanisms used to create interactive behavior.
I generalize existing control structures for interaction as entanglements, and develop a higher-order control structure, entanglers, which produces entanglements when particular pre-conditions, called co-occurrences, are met. Entanglers cause interactions to be assembled dynamically as system components come and go. I develop these mechanisms in Tangler, a prototype environment for building malleable interactive software. I demonstrate how Tangler supports malleability through a set of benchmark cases illustrating how users can modify systems by themselves or with programmer assistance.
This thesis is an early step towards a paradigm for programming and designing malleable software that can keep up with human diversity.