TouchBlockly: A Tactile Programming Language Based on Free-Form Gestures

Abstract

In this paper I present TouchBlockly, a tactile programming language that is based on hand drawn gestures on touch screen devices. The language is designed as an educational tool and was developed using Blockly, a library created by Google for building visual program editors. TouchBlockly strives towards three guiding principles: intuitive ges- tures, instantaneous feedback and reduced interactions. Via these mechanisms TouchBlockly aims to improve a student’s comprehension of core programming elements and to reduce the time taken to compose working code. The effectiveness of the language was studied via an experimental approach. Inexperienced programmers were asked to complete basic coding challenges. Participants were divided into two groups. The first half were a control group that used a version of TouchBlockly where blocks could only be manipulated via drag and drop motions, as is typical for visual programming languages. The second half used the TouchBlockly language to complete challenges. Time taken to complete challenges as well as the number of touch interactions used to complete challenges were recorded. The Touch- Blockly group on average used fewer touch interactions to develop their programs and were able to complete more of the challenges. For the challenges completed, the control group took less time on average.