Date: 31 May 2010 From: jyrki@diku.dk Subject: Master's thesis on end-user development Oral defence of M.Sc. thesis: Slutbrugerudvikling: Tilgængelighed og manipulation af data inden for kontaktallergiforskning Defender: Søren Gade Censor: Anne Mette Jonassen Hass Supervisor: Jyrki Katajainen Time: Thursday, 10 June 2010 at 17.30–18.30 Place: Computer room 3-1-25 Defence will be held in Danish Abstract: A national clinical database of contact allergy maintained by the National Allergy Research Centre is central for the research done in this field in Denmark. Even though researchers using the database are experts in their own field, they often have insufficient knowledge of the manipulation of databases and have difficulties in formulating ad hoc queries on their own. In this thesis the question of end-user development is discussed, and a system is provided that helps end-users, in this particular case contact allergy researchers, to formulate ad hoc queries. The kernel of the system is a new limited data model which is combined with a professional database engine. The data model was an outcome of an iterative test and development strategy where feedback received from end-users had a considerable impact on the final design. To make the interaction straightforward, the model uses denormalization and contains precalculated aggregated columns. The resulting system provides easy access to the contact allergy data and, as validated, generates the same output as the original system. Some of the test persons still experience difficulties when formulating complicated queries, which is primarily due to lack of understanding of set theory and logical expressions. The thesis also resulted in a series of tips for developers of data models and database engines. The thesis is available online at http://www.diku.dk/~jyrki/PE-lab/Soeren/ PE-lab's home page: http://www.diku.dk/~jyrki/PE-lab/