An End User Perspective on Mashup Makers

Lars Grammel, Margaret-Anne D. Storey. An End User Perspective on Mashup Makers. Technical Report DCS-324-IR, University of Victoria, September 2008.

Abstract

This paper presents a review of six mashup makers from an End User Development (EUD) perspective. The fast-paced development of mashup makers and related research in the last two years has created a wealth of features and approaches. To provide an overview of EUD sup- port in current state-of-the art mashup makers, we explore, summarize and compare their features across six different themes (Levels of Abstrac- tion, Learning Support, Community Support, Searchability, UI Design and Software Engineering Techniques). We found that the mashup mak- ers provide many features to support end users, but there is still much room for further improvement. These results can be used to guide both research and tool design. User studies that reveal the difficulties in using mashup makers and comparisons of different notations are likely to be especially fruitful research opportunities.