Remaining Oriented During Software Development Tasks: An Exploratory Field Study

Humans have been observed to become disoriented when using menu or hypertext systems. Similar phenomena have been reported by software developers, often manifesting as a feeling of lostness while exploring a software system. To investigate this phenomena in the context of software development, we undertook a field study, observing eight developers of the open-source Eclipse project for two hours each as they conducted their normal development work. We also interviewed two other developers using the same tools but who were working on a closed-source system. The developers did report some instances of disorientation, but it was a rare occurrence; rather we observed strategies the developers used to remain oriented. Based on the study results, we hypothesize factors that contribute to disorientation during programming tasks as well as factors that contribute to remaining oriented. Our results can help encode best practices for code navigation, can help inform the development of tools, and can help in the further study of orientation and disorientation in software development.