Executive Summary
Overall, all users across varying levels of experience with coding understood the concept of the PiCode 2.0 as a more natural language, easier to understand and readable than the typical programming languages they are accustomed to. Most were able to quickly troubleshoot or solve for the problem when presented with the scenarios/tasks.
All users across levels of coding experience saw PICode 2.0 as superior to PiCode 1.0 in terms of readability and understandability. They also remarked on the "simplicity" and not being intimidated initially when contrasting the 2 examples of code. It should be noted that the user with the most experience commmented "More experienced Developers will probably like Picode 1.0 better since they like to dig in to the details and see where things come from.."
We intentionally spoke to users with varying levels of Coding experience from the low (Web Developers) to the high (C-Sharp) and the difference in their ease of use and understanding is remarkable. Those with advanced coding knowledge were immediately able to troubleshoot and solve for the problem as presented. Problem solving skills and persistence is likely a key attribute when considering future hires for Pi Developers. Based on this very non scientific sample, Web Developers (HTML & CSS Developers) are candidates who will require a higher investment in training. Those with less coding knowledge still understood the natural language concept but asked for more clarification and job aids including:
Greater context & knowledge needed for user
Next Steps
The next step will be to quanitfy many of the findings that we have established in the first two rounds of research. We have an approved SOW to conduct a survey with 200 Developers, with the ability to run an additional 100 ADP employees through the survey as well.
Key findings to quantify in a survey environment include:
All users across levels of coding experience saw PICode 2.0 as superior to PiCode 1.0 in terms of readability and understandability. They also remarked on the "simplicity" and not being intimidated initially when contrasting the 2 examples of code. It should be noted that the user with the most experience commmented "More experienced Developers will probably like Picode 1.0 better since they like to dig in to the details and see where things come from.."
We intentionally spoke to users with varying levels of Coding experience from the low (Web Developers) to the high (C-Sharp) and the difference in their ease of use and understanding is remarkable. Those with advanced coding knowledge were immediately able to troubleshoot and solve for the problem as presented. Problem solving skills and persistence is likely a key attribute when considering future hires for Pi Developers. Based on this very non scientific sample, Web Developers (HTML & CSS Developers) are candidates who will require a higher investment in training. Those with less coding knowledge still understood the natural language concept but asked for more clarification and job aids including:
Greater context & knowledge needed for user
- Payroll 101
- Code completion was buggy throughout testing causing some confusion
- Business rules behind what you’re trying to do/what’s going wrong
- Contextual and inline help within the Editor to provide explanation of confusing terminology/processes
- Data dictionary – for inputs and outputs
- Alias names – clear what exactly it’s pulling
- Color coding – what each color means
Next Steps
The next step will be to quanitfy many of the findings that we have established in the first two rounds of research. We have an approved SOW to conduct a survey with 200 Developers, with the ability to run an additional 100 ADP employees through the survey as well.
Key findings to quantify in a survey environment include:
- User's recognition of PiCode as being natural language, simple, clean and easy to understand
- PiCode 2.0 being superior to PiCode 1.0 on these same measures