Helping users avoid bugs in GUI applications

ABSTRACT

In this paper, we propose a method to help users avoid bugs in GUI applications. In particular, users would use the application normally and report bugs that they encounter to prevent anyone -- including themselves -- from encountering those bugs again. When a user attempts an action that has led to problems in the past, he/she will receive a warning and will be given the opportunity to abort the action -- thus avoiding the bug altogether and keeping the application stable. Of course, bugs should be fixed eventually by the application developers, but our approach allows application users to collaboratively help each other avoid bugs -- thus making the application more usable in the meantime. We demonstrate this approach using our "Stabilizer" prototype. We also include a preliminary evaluation of the Stabilizer's bug prediction.

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INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  D. Software
  D.2 SOFTWARE ENGINEERING
      D.2.5 Testing and Debugging
          Subjects: Error handling and recovery

General Terms:
Experimentation, Reliability

Keywords:
bug prediction, bug tracking system, fault evasion, gui applications, software testing, software tools