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An Eye Tracking Study Assessing Code Readability

Yedla, Nishitha

Abstract Details

2017, Master of Computing and Information Systems, Youngstown State University, Department of Computer Science and Information Systems.
Software developers spend considerable time on a wide variety of tasks such as fixing bugs and implementing new features. All these tasks require reading and understanding code. One of the key ideas for improving maintenance processes is that code should be highly readable so that it is easy to understand. The hypothesis behind this is that the degree of understandability of the source code has a crucial impact on cost and effort. To test this theory, we conducted an eye tracking study to determine how two types of code readability rules affect performance. We focused specifically on two coding practices: minimize-nesting rule and avoid do/while loops. The accuracy was higher for minimize-nesting rule and avoid do/while rule only for the correct methods that followed the rule. No significant difference is found in the amount of time spent to analyze the methods that followed the minimize-nesting rule and avoid do-while rule. For minimize-nesting rule, we found significant difference in ease of readability and level of confidence when the method followed the rule. For minimize nesting rule, the visual effort was less to analyze conditional statements and the overall method when the method followed the rule. The rank of readability was higher for methods that followed the rule. In the method comparison task, the visual effort was less to analyze the conditional statements of the methods that followed avoid do/while rule. The results of this study can be used by developers and practitioners to create coding style guides based on these rules.
Bonita Sharif, PhD (Advisor)
Alina Lazar, PhD (Committee Member)
Feng Yu, PhD (Committee Member)
135 p.

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Yedla, N. (2017). An Eye Tracking Study Assessing Code Readability [Master's thesis, Youngstown State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ysu149512047317961

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Yedla, Nishitha. An Eye Tracking Study Assessing Code Readability. 2017. Youngstown State University, Master's thesis. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ysu149512047317961.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Yedla, Nishitha. "An Eye Tracking Study Assessing Code Readability." Master's thesis, Youngstown State University, 2017. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ysu149512047317961

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)