Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'API usability'

In today’s computer environments the systems are getting bigger and more complex for each day that passes by. The motivating factor for this is that the customer wants to achieve more and more with their computer systems than before. The only way to really solve this task is to use even more APIs (Application program interfaces) in their systems.     When using more APIs in a system, there is a chance that the specific system provides the same type of API twice, which of course, is a waste of storage and resources. In addition, the more APIs a system contains, the bigger the risk is for mismanagement of these APIs. In the worst case, this can result in security breaches or data leaks.  This thesis investigates specific APIs provided for a customer of Sigma IT Consulting. The aim is to evaluate and organize the APIs according to their usability criteria. The main focus of the evaluation is the available documentation which will be evaluated by a questionnaire survey distributed to senior software developers at Sigma IT Consulting in Växjö. Conclusions will then be drawn depending on the result from the survey, and we can then see if Azure API management (which is a service to make a system more user – friendly) is accurate in its way of organizing with the API usability as the main focus! Unfortunately, Azure API management did not have any possibility what so ever to customize the API placement in a system, and the only way the APIs are organized is in alphabetical order. Therefore, a prototype with even more sorting functionality than Azure API management will also be presented in this thesis.

This Master’s thesis describes the development and evaluation of a responsive, map-based website intended to support book sharing in public places. The book sharing concept focuses on allowing a user to locate a book in a public place, register it online and share it again once they have finished reading it. In order to measure the usability of the website, two tests were conducted, which compared the website with another website for book sharing. The first test was conducted using questionnaires, with 24 participants, where as the second test focused on observations and interviews with four participants. Moreover, in order to measure the accessibility of the thesis website, an expert evaluation and an evaluation using accessibility evaluation tools were conducted. The results from the usability tests showed a need for improvements, for instance in the form of supporting documentation and addition of undo/redo options. The results of the expert review were positive while theresults ofthe accessibility tools showed compatibility issues depending on the browser that the website is accessed with.

When you are creating new software today, more often than not you will use API’s. Users choosing between different API’s would probably look at functionality but also accessibility and ease of use. It would therefore seem motivated for API providers to create usable and accessible API’s.This thesis is about the things that make an API more usable, and then those things are used in practice to increase the usability of CloudMe’s API. CloudMe’s core API is documented to increase usability and a wrapper for the API is developed to allow people more ways to use CloudMe’s service. The APIwrapper is created in Java and was developed thoroughly with regards to usability.

Reference documentation is an important source of information on API usage. Programmers, however, can easily overlook reference information because of its tedious nature, and because the information they seek can be buried among irrelevant or boiler-plate text. We propose to detect and recommend fragments of API documentation relevant and important to a task. We categorize pieces of information in API documentation based on the type of knowledge they contain. From the pieces that contain knowledge worthy of recommendation, we extract the composition and the pattern of words, and use the patterns to automatically find new pieces that contain similar knowledge. In an evaluation study, with a training set of manually-classified reference documentation of about 1 000 API elements, we could issue recommendations with about, on average, 90% precision and 69% recall.
La documentation de référence est une source importante d'information sur l'usage d'une API. Cependant, les programmeurs peuvent négliger cette information que l'information recherchée se trouve enfouie au milieu de texte passe-partout et sans pertinence. Nous proposons de détecter et recommender les fragments de documentation d'API pertinents à une tâche donnée de façon automatique. Nous catégorisons les morceaux d'information dans la documentation d'API en fonction du type de savoir qu'ils renferment. À partir des morceaux de savoir digne de recommendation, nous extrayons des patrons de mots, puis utilisons ces patrons pour trouver automatiquement de nouveaux morceaux qui renferment un savoir similaire. Nous présentons les résultats d'une évaluation expérimentale de notre système effectuée à partir de plus de 1 000 morceaux d'API, où nous trouvons que notre système offre de recommendations adéquates 90% du temps avec un taux de rappel de 69%.

Transport Layer Security (TLS) is a secure communication protocol between a client and a server over a network. The TLS protocol provides the two endpoints with confidentiality through symmetric encryption, endpoint authentication using public-key cryptography, and data integrity using a MAC. However, studies show that security vulnerabilities within TLS connections are often caused by developers misusing TLS library APIs. We measure the usability of four TLS libraries by performing a developer user study. Participants were given code that connects to google.com through HTTP, and tasked with using a TLS library to change the code so that it connects securely to Google through HTTPS. Our results help show what makes a library usable and what problems arise for developers using these TLS libraries. We found that the main way to ensure a TLS library is usable is to focus on having clear documentation. From our results, we provide suggestions on how to create usable documentation.

Användbarheten hos ett API kan vara en viktig faktor för en slutanvändares produktivitet, eller framgången en mjukvaruprodukt. Det finns ingen enskild definition av, eller metod för att uppnå användbarhet. Många riktlinjer kan vara teoretiska och svårapplicerade. Detta arbete sammanfattar definitioner av och utvärderingsmetoder för användbarhet. En av dessa metoder anpassas och används för en formativ utvärdering som del av utvecklingsprocessen av ett nytt API för röstchatt i webben. API:et specificeras och implementeras i en första version som utvärderas med testanvändare för att hitta användbarhetsproblem. Förbättringsförslag för API:ets vidareutveckling ges baserat på funna problem. Avslutningsvis diskuteras utvärderingsmetoderna utifrån resurserna som krävs för genomförande.
The usability of an API can be an important factor for the productivity of end users, or the success of a software product. There is no single definition of, or method to achieve, usability. Many guidelines can be theoretical and difficult to apply. This paper summarises usability definitions and evaluation methods. One of these methods is adapted and used for a formative evaluation as part of the development process of a new API for web based voice chat. The API is specified and implemented in a first version which is evaluated with test users to find usability problems. Improvement proposals for the further development of the API are given based on found problems. In closing, the evaluation methods are discussed based on the resources required for execution.

I dagsläget tenderar många att använda tjänster som hanteras separat. Arbetet undersöker om det är möjligt att sammankoppla ett fåtal tjänster i en gemensam webbapplikation för att underlätta kommunicering mellan tjänsterna samt att förbättra användarvänligheten. Företaget A Great Thing har i åtanke att skapa en webbapplikation som tillåter användare att med hjälp av deras applikation skapa agenter som sköter händelser från användarens begäran, exempelvis “spela upp en låt vid en viss tid”. Metodiken som tillämpats har dels varit en fallstudie och dels användarbaserade metoder i form av enkätundersökning samt ett användartest. Ytterligare undersöktes hur kommunikationen går mellan tjänsters API, och de nödvändiga parametrar som utbyter data. Slutligen evalueras den framtagna prototypen enligt vissa riktlinjer inom användarvänlighet. Examensarbetets resultat är i form av en webbprototyp med fokus på användarvänlighet, implementering av API:er, användartest på faktiska användare samt statistik på efterfrågan av tjänster. Vidare har även en marknadsundersökning utförts för att belysa ekonomiska vinstmöjligheter genom API-distribution. Slutsatsen dras att det är möjligt att sammankoppla API:er och dess tjänster för att uppnå ett användarvänligt gränssnitt samt hur nödvändiga parametrar disponeras på ett effektivt vis. Vidare är förhoppningen att utomstående läsare skapar en förståelse om hur sammankopplingen går till på ett strukturerat och informativt tillvägagångssätt. Även hur olika tekniska metoder inom användarvänlighet kan tillämpas vid konstruktion av prototyper.
Nowadays people tend to use services and appliances that are managed seperately. This thesis examines the possibility of connecting different services into one main web application to faciliate communication between these services. A Great Thing have embraced the need of connecting applications to a single device and therefore, wants to create a web application integrated with the use of agents. These agents are built to manage the events a user request. For example ”Play a song at a specific time”. The methodology applied has partly been a case study and partly user-based methods in form of a survery and a user test. Further research was conducted on communication between service API:s and the necessary parameters that exchange data. Finally, the developed prototype was evaluated according to some usability guidelines. The thesis’s results are presented in the form of a web prototype focused on usability, implementation of APIs, user test of actual users and statistics of demanded services. In addition, a market research has been conducted to highlight economic benefits through API distribution. The conclusion is drawn that it is possible to link API:s and their services to achieve a user-friendly interface and how to use different parameters in an efficient way. Furthermore, the hope is that external readers will understand how the connection between API:s works in a structured and informative approach. Also how different technical methods for usability can be applied in construction of prototypes.

Lo scopo della tesi è di fornire un processo di produzione user-centered e un formalismo che lo descriva ponendosi come alternativa a basso costo a processi che non prevedano attenzioni per l'utente e l'usabilità del sistema. La tesi descrive per primo lo stato dell'arte in quanto a metodi formali e semi-formali nell'interazione uomo macchina. Successivamente si introduce il metodo CROSS che modifica il processo goal-oriented incentrando l'analisi dei requisiti sulle categorie di utenti dette ruoli, i concetti che manipolano e con quali operazioni. Segue la definizione di Crospen Api, un'estensione dello standard OpenAPI che descriva i prodotti di CROSS, con particolar enfasi del diagramma del sistema, creato seguendo il metodo. Si mette infine alla prova il lavoro, confrontando un sistema reale con una specifica che voglia ripensarne l'interfaccia evitando alcuni degli errori di usabilità.

Lo scopo di questo lavoro è quello di teorizzare un metodo per poter generare in modo automatico applicazioni web basate su operazioni standard su basi di dati, utilizzando un documento di livello comprensibile ad un calcolatore, e contemporaneamente abbastanza astratto da poter essere facilmente interpretabile dall'uomo. Dopo un primo capitolo introduttivo, nel secondo capitolo vengono analizzati dei generatori di interfacce utente andando ad analizzare i rapporti tra le interfacce e l'usabilità del prodotto. Il terzo capitolo invece indaga il processo orientato agli obiettivi (goal-oriented) CROSS per la creazione di software user-centered. Si osservano qui le differenze con un modello goal-oriented tradizionale. Vengono analizzate le cause di inusabilità che CROSS vuole contrastare, per poi, dopo una panoramica andare a vedere nel dettaglio quelle che sono le componenti CROSS: Concetti, Ruoli, Operazioni e Strutture e Schemi.Il quarto capitolo presenta CROSPEN API, il formalismo di rappresentazione e documentazione di Applicazioni Web che rispetta il processo di creazione CROSS. Viene dunque analizzato OpenApi, e successivamente viene spiegata la sua estensione CROSPEN API. Il quinto capitolo presenta lo strumento in se, raccontando le varie idee di sviluppo, l'implementazione dei concetti e le tecnologie impiegate nella sua realizzazione. Vengono analizzate le quattro componenti dell'applicazione: Crosser ( strumento di parsing del file CROSPEN API), Crossback (strumento di generazione del server), DBG (strumento di generazione della base di dati e delle funzioni per la sua gestione ) e CrossVue (il generatore di interfacce utente).Il sesto e ultimo capitolo ha il compito di trarre le conclusioni sul lavoro svolto e di raccontare i propositi di implementazione futuri.

Software development requires the use of external Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) in order to reuse libraries and frameworks. Programmers often struggle with unfamiliar APIs due to their lack of resources or less common design. Such difficulties often lead to an incorrect sequences of API calls that may not produce the desired outcome. Language models have shown the ability to capture regularities in text as well as in code. In this work we explore the use of n-gram language models and their ability to capture regularities in API usage through an intrinsic and extrinsic evaluation of these models on some of the most widely used APIs for the Java programming language. To achieve this, several language models were trained over a source code corpora containing several hundreds of GitHub Java projects that use the desired APIs. In order to fully assess the performance of the language models, we have selected APIs from multiple domains and vocabulary sizes. This work allowed us to conclude that n-gram language models are able to capture the API usage patterns due to their low perplexity values and their high overall coverage, going up to 100% in some cases, which encouraged us to create a code completion tool to help programmers stay in the right path when using unknown APIs while allowing for some exploration.
O desenvolvimento de software requer a utilização de Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) externas com o objectivo de reutilizar bibliotecas e frameworks. Muitas vezes, os programadores têm dificuldade em utilizar APIs desconhecidas, devido à falta de recursos ou desenho fora do comum. Essas dificuldades provocam inúmeras vezes sequências incorrectas de chamadas às APIs que poderão não produzir o resultado desejado. Os modelos de língua mostraram-se capazes de capturar regularidades em texto, bem como em código. Neste trabalho é explorada a utilização de modelos de língua de n-gramas e a sua capacidade de capturar regularidades na utilização de APIs, através de uma avaliação intrínseca e extrínseca destes modelos em algumas das APIs mais utilizadas na linguagem de programação Java. Para alcançar este objectivo, vários modelos foram treinados sobre repositórios de código do GitHub, contendo centenas de projectos Java que utilizam estas APIs. Com o objectivo de ter uma avaliação completa do desempenho dos modelos de língua, foram seleccionadas APIs de múltiplos domínios e tamanhos de vocabulário. Este trabalho permite concluir que os modelos de língua de n-gramas são capazes de capturar padrões de utilização de APIs devido aos seus baixos valores de perplexidade e a sua alta cobertura, chegando a atingir 100% em alguns casos, o que levou à criação de uma ferramenta de code completion para guiar os programadores na utilização de uma API desconhecida, mas mantendo a possibilidade de a explorar.

Thesis (M.S.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 2003.
Typescript. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 61-68).

Thesis (M.S.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1992.
Typescript. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 68-72).

Les systèmes logiciels dépendent de plus en plus des librairies et des frameworks logiciels. Les programmeurs réutilisent les fonctionnalités offertes par ces librairies à travers une interface de programmation (API). Par conséquent, ils doivent faire face à la complexité des APIs nécessaires pour accomplir leurs tâches, tout en surmontant l’absence de directive sur l’utilisation de ces API dans leur documentation. Dans cette thèse, nous proposons une approche holistique qui cible le problème de réutilisation des librairies, à trois niveaux. En premier lieu, nous nous sommes intéressés à la réutilisation d’une seule méthode d’une API. À ce niveau, nous proposons d’identifier les contraintes d’utilisation liées aux paramètres de la méthode, en analysant uniquement le code source de la librairie. Nous avons appliqué plusieurs analyses de programme pour détecter quatre types de contraintes d’utilisation considérées critiques. Dans un deuxième temps, nous changeons l’échelle pour nous focaliser sur l’inférence des patrons d’utilisation d’une API. Ces patrons sont utiles pour aider les développeurs à apprendre les façons courantes d’utiliser des méthodes complémentaires de l’API. Nous proposons d’abord une technique basée sur l’analyse des programmes clients de l’API. Cette technique permet l’inférence de patrons multi-niveaux. Ces derniers présentent des relations de co-utilisation entre les méthodes de l’API à travers des scénarios d’utilisation entremêlés. Ensuite, nous proposons une technique basée uniquement sur l’analyse du code de la librairie, pour surmonter la contrainte de l’existence des programmes clients de l‘API. Cette technique infère les patrons par analyse des relations structurelles et sémantiques entre les méthodes. Finalement, nous proposons une technique coopérative pour l’inférence des patrons d’utilisation. Cette technique est axée sur la combinaison des heuristiques basées respectivement sur les clients et sur le code de la librairie. Cette combinaison permet de profiter à la fois de la précision des techniques basées sur les clients et de la généralisabilité des techniques basées sur les librairies. Pour la dernière contribution de notre thèse, nous visons un plus haut niveau de réutilisation des librairies. Nous présentons une nouvelle approche, pour identifier automatiquement les patrons d’utilisation de plusieurs librairies, couramment utilisées ensemble, et généralement développées par différentes tierces parties. Ces patrons permettent de découvrir les possibilités de réutilisation de plusieurs librairies pour réaliser diverses fonctionnalités du projets.
Software systems increasingly depend on external library and frameworks. Software developers need to reuse functionalities provided by these libraries through their Application Programming Interfaces (APIs). Hence, software developers have to cope with the complexity of existing APIs needed to accomplish their work, and overcome the lack of usage directive in the API documentation. In this thesis, we propose a holistic approach that deals with the library usability problem at three levels of granularity. In the first step, we focus on the method level. We propose to identify usage constraints related to method parameters, by analyzing only the library source code. We applied program analysis strategies to detect four critical usage constraint types. At the second step, we change the scale to focus on API usage pattern mining in order to help developers to better learn common ways to use the API complementary methods. We first propose a client-based technique for mining multilevel API usage patterns to exhibit the co-usage relationships between API methods across interfering usage scenarios. Then, we proposed a library-based technique to overcome the strong constraint of client programs’ selection. Our technique infers API usage patterns through the analysis of structural and semantic relationships between API methods. Finally, we proposed a cooperative usage pattern mining technique that combines client-based and library-based usage pattern mining. Our technique takes advantage at the same time from the precision of the client-based technique and from the generalizability of the library-based technique. As a last contribution of this thesis, we target a higher level of library usability. We present a novel approach, to automatically identify third-party library usage patterns, of libraries that are commonly used together. This aims to help developers to discover reuse opportunities, and pick complementary libraries that may be relevant for their projects.

Dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Science in Geospatial Technologies
This research seeks to design and implement a WebGIS application allowing high school students to work with information related to the disciplinary competencies of the competency-teaching model, in Mexico. This paradigm assumes knowledge to be acquired through the application of new technologies and to link it with everyday life situations of students. The WebGIS provides access to maps regarding natural risks in Mexico, e.g. volcanism, seismic activities, or hurricanes; the prototype's user interface was designed with special emphasis on scholar needs for high school students.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Florida State University, 1996.
"This study was conducted in the computer laboratory of the College of Education, at Florida State University using Macintosh computers"--P. 52. Includes vita. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 140-148).

In the present day, the use of APIs, varying in complexity, size and design are pervasive, in the development of software. They are used to communicate, to log information, to draw charts and a myriad of other purposes. With this increasing importance in API usage, developers often struggle when using an API for the first time and are faced with various API discoverability problems. We propose an approach that aims to help mitigate the discoverability problems by providing code suggestions based on data extracted from structurally analyzing APIs for type relationships. The relationships are stored in a graph, which is used to navigate between the API types. The first steps when using an API are often one of the difficulties that developers face. For this reason, our approach provides API starting points to help the developer kick-start the use of the API. The next stage in API usage usually consists in using API types to access or create other API types. Our approach suggests possible type compositions based on the types available in the current development context. Depending on the API, the amount of extracted relationships can be overwhelming if directly suggested to the developer and for this reason a filtering mechanism and ranking heuristic were created, in order to provide more meaningful suggestions. Our approach was tested by analyzing 5 different APIs and simulating suggestions from the extracted data, comparing those suggestions to API usage examples. The results provide some evidence that our approach is a possible solution to the API discoverability problems and that the structural analysis to a given API can provide considerable amount of the information required to create and deliver suggestions to developers.
Actualmente, o uso de APIs, com diferentes graus de complexidade, tamanho e estrutura, é inevitável no desenvolvimento de software. As APIs são usadas para comunicação, registar informação, desenhar gráficos entre uma miríade de outras funcionalidades. Com este aumento na importância do uso de APIs, os programadores são muitas vezes confrontados com vários problemas de usabilidade quando usam uma API pela primeira vez. Propomos uma abordagem que visa ajudar na mitigação destes problemas através de sugestões de código, obtidas a partir da informação proveniente de uma análise estrutural a APIs que tem como objectivo encontrar relações entre tipos. Estas relações são armazenadas em grafos que irão ser usados para navegar entre os diversos tipos da API. Os primeiros passos de um programador quando usa uma API são, numa boa parte das vezes, uma das fontes de dificuldade. Por esta razão, a nossa abordagem disponibiliza um conjunto de pontos iniciais da API, de forma a auxiliar o programador no uso inicial da mesma. A fase seguinte no uso de uma API normalmente consiste na utilização de tipos da API, de forma a aceder ou criar outros tipos da API. A nossa abordagem sugere possíveis composições de tipos com base na informação do contexto actual de desenvolvimento. Dependendo da API, a quantidade de relações extraídas pode ser avassaladora, se sugeridas directamente ao programador. Para conseguir oferecer sugestões significativas, foi criado um sistema de filtragem e uma heurística de ordenação. A nossa abordagem foi testada analisando 5 diferentes API e simulando sugestões através da informação extraída. Estas sugestões foram comparadas com exemplos de utilização destas APIs. Os resultados evidenciam que a nossa abordagem é uma solução possível para os problemas de usabilidade de APIs, e que a análise estrutural a uma API permite obter o conjunto de informação necessária para gerar e disponibilizar sugestões a programadores

Nesta dissertação apresentou-se um SDK para a criação de conectores a integrar com o CB Server, que pretende: acelerar o desenvolvimento, garantir melhores práticas e simplificar as diversas atividades e tarefas no processo de desenvolvimento. O SDK fornece uma API pública e simples, suportada por um conjunto de ferramentas, que facilitam o processo de desenvolvimento, explorando as facilidades disponibilizadas através da API. Para analisar a exatidão, viabilidade, integridade e acessibilidade da solução apresentam-se dois exemplos e casos de estudo. Através dos casos de estudo foi possível identificar uma lista de problemas, de pontos sensíveis e melhorias na solução proposta. Para avaliar a usabilidade da API, uma metodologia baseada em vários métodos de avaliação de usabilidade foi estabelecida. O múltiplo caso de estudo funciona como o principal método de avaliação, combinando vários métodos de pesquisa. O caso de estudo consiste em três fases de avaliação: um workshop, uma avaliação heurística e uma análise subjetiva. O caso de estudo envolveu três engenheiros de software (incluindo programadores e avaliadores). A metodologia aplicada gerou resultados com base num método de inspeção, testes de utilizador e entrevistas. Identificou-se não só pontos sensíveis e falhas no código-fonte, mas também problemas estruturais, de documentação e em tempo de execução, bem como problemas relacionados com a experiência do utilizador. O contexto do estudo é apresentado de modo a tirar conclusões acerca dos resultados obtidos. O trabalho futuro incluirá o desenvolvimento de novas funcionalidades. Adicionalmente, pretende-se resolver problemas encontrados na metodologia aplicada para avaliar a usabilidade da API, nomeadamente problemas e falhas no código fonte (por exemplo, validações) e problemas estruturais.
In this dissertation, we present an SDK for the creation of connectors to integrate with CB Server which accelerates deployment, ensures best practices and simplifies the various activities and tasks in the development process. The SDK provides a public and simple API leveraged by a set of tools around the API developed which facilitate the development process by exploiting the API facilities. To analyse the correctness, feasibility, completeness, and accessibility of our solution, we presented two examples and case studies. From the case studies, we derived a list of issues found in our solution and a set of proposals for improvement. To evaluate the usability of the API, a methodology based on several usability evaluation methods has been established. Multiple case study works as the main evaluation method, combining several research methods. The case study consists of three evaluation phases – a hands-on workshop, a heuristic evaluation and subjective analysis. The case study involved three computer science engineers (including novice and expert developers and evaluators). The applied methodology generated insights based on an inspection method, a user test, and interviews. We identify not only problems and flaws in the source code, but also runtime, structural and documentation problems, as well as problems related to user experience. To help us draw conclusion from the results, we point out the context of the study. Future work will include the development of new functionalities. Additionally, we aim to solve problems found in the applied methodology to evaluate the usability of the API, namely problems and flaws in the source code (e.g. validations) and structural problems.