Bill Curtis
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Publications by Bill Curtis (bibliography)
» 1996 «
Turner, Thea, Curtis, Bill, Herbsleb, Jim and Atwood, Michael E. (1996): Empirical Studies of Programming Organizations. In: Gray, Wayne D., Boehm-Davis, Deborah A. and Spohrer, James C. (eds.) Empirical Studies of Programmers - Sixth Workshop January 5-7, 1996, 1996, Alexandria, Virginia. pp. 259-262.
» 1995 «
Curtis, Bill (1995): Objects of Our Desire: Empirical Research on Object-Oriented Development. In Human-Computer Interaction, 10 (2) pp. 337-344
“Object-oriented (OO) design and programming trace their lineage to research on abstract data types in the late 1960s and early 1970s, but they did not become popular software development techniques until the late 1980s. In all this time there has been little serious empirical or experimental study of OO techniques. What usually passes for evaluation is either a testimonial from an industry pundit who may have developed a small application using an OO technique, or the report of a successful application by an advanced development group. It is curious that industries which perform sophisticated return on investment analyses of investments in plant and equipment will commit billions of dollars to investment in software development which uses new techniques that have received little to no valid empirical evaluation. Empirical studies of OO design began appearing in the early 1990s (Boehm-Davis & Ross, 1992; Detienne, 1990; Kim & Lerch, 1992; Rosson & Alpert, 1990). The handful of research papers produced by these scientists is buried under the avalanche of uncritical testimonials appearing in the computing trade press. OO techniques have even made the covers of venerable business periodicals where they were claimed to be causing a revolution in software technology. It seems that computing revolutions are measured primarily by deployment, somewhat less by successful implementation, and far less by actual cost benefits. Unfortunately, many companies who quaffed an OO elixir did not recover immediately from the software maladies that afflicted them. Although excellent textbooks on OO methods are now available, there is tragically little empirical research on their application. Even worse, this special issue of Human-Computer Interaction will be read by very few of the thousands of the people who read Computerworld, Information Week, Datamation, Software Development, and the other trade press periodicals in which OO methods are touted as often as explained. The results reported in this special issue are promising, but simultaneously they provide sobering expectations about the effort involved in obtaining the benefits of OO methods.”
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» 1994 «
Curtis, Bill and Hefley, Bill (1994): A WIMP No More: The Maturing of User Interface Engineering. In Interactions, 1 (1) pp. 22-34
“Looking to the past, present and future of interface design, the authors review forces shaping its application and present a vision of emerging engineering practice.”
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» 1993 «
Walz, Diane B., Elam, Joyce J. and Curtis, Bill (1993): Inside a Software Design Team: Knowledge Acquisition, Sharing, and Integration. In Communications of the ACM, 36 (10) pp. 63-77
» 1992 «
Curtis, Bill, Kellner, Marc I. and Over, Jim (1992): Process Modeling. In Communications of the ACM, 35 (9) pp. 75-90
» 1991 «
Curtis, Bill, Kuntz, Roy, Curtis, Bill, Hollan, James D., Mountford, S. Joy and Collier, George (1991): Retrospective on the MCC Human Interface Laboratory. In: Robertson, Scott P., Olson, Gary M. and Olson, Judith S. (eds.) Proceedings of the ACM CHI 91 Human Factors in Computing Systems Conference April 28 - June 5, 1991, New Orleans, Louisiana. pp. 373-376. Available online
“On July 27, 1990 the participants in MCC's Advanced Computer Technology Program decided to terminate MCC's Human Interface Laboratory. This panel will present the technical and organizational lessons learned in the rise and fall of MCC's Human Interface Laboratory.”
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Zweben, Stu, Curtis, Bill and Shneiderman, Ben (1991): The Best of ESP. In: Koenemann-Belliveau, Jurgen, Moher, Thomas G. and Robertson, Scott P. (eds.) Proceedings of the Fourth Annual Workshop on Empirical Studies of Programmers 1991, Norwood, New Jersey, USA. pp. 1-2.
» 1990 «
Curtis, Bill (1990): Empirical Studies of the Software Design Process. In: Diaper, Dan, Gilmore, David J., Cockton, Gilbert and Shackel, Brian (eds.) INTERACT 90 - 3rd IFIP International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction August 27-31, 1990, Cambridge, UK. pp. xxxv-xl.
“Empirical research on software development has shown that the design phase exercises extreme leverage over project outcomes. This paper reviews research performed at MCC on the design process and proposes several research questions whose answers are crucial to improving productivity and quality. One implication of these results is that project outcomes are largely determined before a project begins. (As is the author's habit, the talk at INTERACT'90 may differ substantially from this paper).”
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» 1989 «
Hollan, James D. and Curtis, Bill (1989): CHI Research at MCC. In: Bice, Ken and Lewis, Clayton H. (eds.) Proceedings of the ACM CHI 89 Human Factors in Computing Systems Conference April 30 - June 4, 1989, Austin, Texas. pp. 147-149.
» 1988 «
Guindon, Raymonde and Curtis, Bill (1988): Control of Cognitive Processes During Software Design: What Tools Are Needed?. In: Soloway, Elliot, Frye, Douglas and Sheppard, Sylvia B. (eds.) Proceedings of the ACM CHI 88 Human Factors in Computing Systems Conference June 15-19, 1988, Washington, DC, USA. pp. 263-268.
“A verbal protocol study of professional software designers has revealed three design process control strategies. At least one of them, the generation of opportunistic solutions at different levels of detail accompanied by problem domain modeling, had not been observed in previous empirical studies nor had been acknowledged in the software engineering practices. Specific breakdowns (difficulties) were associated with the different design process control strategies. Software tools should be provided to designers to alleviate these breakdowns. Parts of a cognitive model of software design, based on distributed control from specialists such as design schemas, design heuristics, and design methods, are presented to account for the observed control strategies.”
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Curtis, Bill, Krasner, Herb and Iscoe, Neil (1988): A Field Study of the Software Design Process for Large Systems. In Communications of the ACM, 31 (11) pp. 1268-1287
» 1987 «
Krasner, Herb, Curtis, Bill and Iscoe, Neil (1987): Communication Breakdowns and Boundary Spanning Activities on Large Programming Projects. In: Olson, Gary M., Sheppard, Sylvia B. and Soloway, Elliot (eds.) Empirical Studies of Programmers - Second Workshop December 7-8 1987, 1987, Washington, DC. pp. 47-64.
“Detailed interviews were conducted with personnel from 19 large software development projects to better understand team and project level problems to be addressed in MCC's research on software design environments. This paper reports observations of project communication phenomena that help bridge the gap between our understanding of programming-in-the-small and programming-in-the-large. We describe 1) the typical communications breakdowns in large programming projects, 2) the cultural and environmental differences that create barriers to effective intergroup communications, and 3) the boundary spanning activities that coordinate five crucial topical networks of communication. The identification of these processes and breakdowns provide a basis for more effective project coordination, including the use of tools for computer supported collaborative software design.”
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Guindon, Raymonde, Krasner, Herb and Curtis, Bill (1987): Breakdowns and Processes During the Early Activities of Software Design by Professionals. In: Olson, Gary M., Sheppard, Sylvia B. and Soloway, Elliot (eds.) Empirical Studies of Programmers - Second Workshop December 7-8 1987, 1987, Washington, DC. pp. 65-82.
“This chapter summarizes some of the main breakdowns (of difficulties) occurring early in the software design process when professional designers work on a problem of realistic complexity. One class of breakdowns is caused by lack of knowledge and another class is caused by cognitive limitations. A third class of breakdowns is caused by a combination of these two factors. The main breakdowns observed are: 1) lack of specialized design schemas; 2) lack of a meta-schema about the design process leading to poor allocation of resources to the various design activities; 3) poor prioritization of issues leading to poor selection of alternative solutions; 4) difficulty in considering all the stated or inferred constraints in defining a solution; 5) difficulty in performing mental simulations with many steps or test cases; 6) difficulty in keeping track and returning to subproblems whose solution has been postponed; and 7) difficulty in expanding or merging solutions from individual subproblems to form a complete solution. We have also observed serendipitous design and the process of understanding and elaborating the requirements through exploration of the designer's mental model of the problem environment. This study provides many observations of breakdowns and design behaviors not reported in previous studies and necessary prior to developing a model of the cognitive activities during software design. This study also provides critical information to guide the design of tools and methodologies to improve the efficiency of software designers.”
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Walz, Diane B., Elam, Joyce J., Krasner, Herb and Curtis, Bill (1987): A Methodology for Studying Software Design Teams: An Investigation of Conflict Behaviors in the Requirements Definition Phase. In: Olson, Gary M., Sheppard, Sylvia B. and Soloway, Elliot (eds.) Empirical Studies of Programmers - Second Workshop December 7-8 1987, 1987, Washington, DC. pp. 83-99.
“This paper presents a methodology which the authors have developed for the analysis of the processes involved in designing large-scale computer-based systems. This methodology is based upon a characterization of the design process which 1) recognizes the diversity of team members' underlying conceptualizations, 2) emphasizes the transformation of abstract goals into concrete systems, and 3) distinguishes between those breakdowns in the design process which are a part of the design function, and those which are the results of the group process itself (within the design context). Essentially, the methodology traces interaction behaviors within design group meetings and relates them, hierarchically, to the issues under discussion. The paper also presents empirical results and a preliminary evaluation of the methodology from an analysis of the group aspect (specifically, conflict behaviors) within a series of requirements definition meetings from an actual development project.”
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Curtis, Bill and Malone, Thomas W. (1987): Introduction to this Special Issue on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work. In Human-Computer Interaction, 3 (1) pp. 1-2
Guindon, Raymonde, Krasner, Herb and Curtis, Bill (1987): Cognitive Processes in Software Design: Activities in Early, Upstream Design. In: Bullinger, Hans-Jorg and Shackel, Brian (eds.) INTERACT 87 - 2nd IFIP International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction September 1-4, 1987, Stuttgart, Germany. pp. 383-388.
“The first goal of this paper is to present some of the main activities occurring during early, upstream software design by experienced designers. We concentrate on the variety of strategies found between designers. The second goal is to bring to attention certain cognitive activities in design that have not been observed or emphasized in other studies of design, such as serendipity and the process of understanding and elaborating the requirements through exploration of the designer's mental model of the problem environment. These activities are likely to be critical in upstream design.”
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Greif, Irene, Curtis, Bill, Krasner, Herb, Malone, Thomas W. and Shneiderman, Ben (1987): Computer--supported cooperative work: Is this REALLY a new field of research?. In: Graphics Interface 87 (CHI+GI 87) April 5-9, 1987, Toronto, Ontario, Canada. pp. 227-228.
» 1986 «
Thomas, John C., Brown, John Seely, Buxton, William, Curtis, Bill, Landauer, Thomas K., Malone, Thomas W. and Shneiderman, Ben (1986): Human Computer Interaction in the Year 2000. In: Mantei, Marilyn and Orbeton, Peter (eds.) Proceedings of the ACM CHI 86 Human Factors in Computing Systems Conference April 13-17, 1986, Boston, Massachusetts. pp. 253-255.
“Much of the work in the field of computer human interaction consists of finding out what is wrong with existing interfaces or which of several existing alternatives is better. Over the next few decades, the possibilities for computer human interaction will explode. This will be due to: 1) continued decrease in the costs of processing and memory, 2) new technologies being invented and existing technologies (e.g., handwriting recognition, speech synthesis) being extended, 3) new applications and 4) new ideas about how people can interact with computers. While changes along these lines are bound to occur, we need not take the view that investigators in human-computer interaction are to be passive observers of some uncontrolled and uncontrollable evolution. Indeed, we can help steer this process by visions of what the future of human computer interaction could and should be like.”
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Curtis, Bill (1986): By the Way, Did Anyone Study Any Real Programmers?. In: Soloway, Elliot and Iyengar, Sitharama (eds.) Empirical Studies of Programmers June 5-6 1986, 1986, Washington, DC. pp. 256-262.
“The relevance of the current empirical research on programming to the pressing problems of software development is challenged. A review of research since 1980 shows a trend toward greater methodological rigor. However, at the same time most studies concentrate on novice programming, and fail to offer guidance in developing advanced software development environments. Several crucial questions are posed for future empirical research on programming and two exploratory studies under way in the author's laboratory are described.”
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» 1985 «
Borman, Lorraine and Curtis, Bill (eds.) Proceedings of the ACM CHI 85 Human Factors in Computing Systems Conference April 14-18, 1985, San Francisco, California.
Curtis, Bill (ed.) (1985): Tutorial: Human Factors in Software Development. Los Angeles, CA, IEEE Computer Society Press
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» 1982 «
Curtis, Bill (1982): A Review of Human Factors Research on Programming Languages and Specifications. In: Nichols, Jean A. and Schneider, Michael L. (eds.) Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems March 15-17, 1982, Gaithersburg, Maryland, United States. pp. 212-218.
“This paper presents a partial review of the human factors work on computer programming. It begins by giving an overview of the behavioral science approach to studying programming. Because of space limitations this review will concentrate on cognitive models of programmer problem solving and the experimental research on language characteristics and specification formats. Areas not reviewed include debugging, programming teams, individual differences, and research methods. The conclusions discuss promising directions for future theory and research.”
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» 1981 «
Curtis, Bill (ed.) (1981): Tutorial: Human Factors in Software Development. Los Angeles, CA, IEEE Computer Society Press
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Mar 22nd, 2010
Changes to this page (author)
23 Feb 2010: Enabled abstracts to be shown on Bill Curtis's author page.18 Aug 2009: Author was edited 17 Aug 2009: Author was edited
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28 Apr 2003: Added the author to the bibliography
