Supporting Software Developers Through a Gaze-Based Adaptive IDE

Abstract

Highly complex systems, such as software development tools, constantly gain features and, consequently, complexity and, thus, risk overwhelming or distracting the user. We argue that automation and adaptation could help users to focus on their work. However, the challenge is to correctly and promptly determine when to adapt what, as often the users’ intent is unclear. To assist software developers, we build a gaze-adaptive integrated development environment using the developers’ gaze as the source for learning appropriate adaptation. Beyond our experience of using gaze for an adaptive user interface, we also report first feedback from developers regarding the desirability of such a user interface, which indicated that adaptations for development tools need to strike a careful balance between automation and user control. Nonetheless, the developers see the value in a gaze-based adaptive user interface and how it could improve software development tools going forward.