Chorus : end user programming of social applications

Abstract

Chorus is an end-user programming tool for building mobile social applications, much in the spirit of HyperCard¹ but reimagined for modern cloud-based applications on smart phones. Chorus innovates in two dimensions: first, by supporting collaboration via "social datatypes" that define a shared structured document; second, by providing a simple user interfaces on smartphones that support interacting with and designing these documents. This thesis reports on the design challenges encountered in building these two user interfaces and the solutions that were explored. The primary contributions of this research are: 1) techniques for visualizing and navigating a complex hierarchical document on a phone, and 2) supporting WYSIWYG design of a complex data artifact within the UI constraints of a phone. Qualitative user testing was used to guide and evaluate the design decisions, indicating both successes and problems requiring further work.