Simple-talking database development: Let the end-user design a relational schema by using simple words

A user-centered approach to assist end-users design a relational database structure is proposed.A prototype end-user development tool that adopts the approach is designed.An experiment is conducted on two expertise-related user groups to examine their performance.Non experienced users performed a little better than experienced users.Gender did not significantly affect performance. Perceived ease of use and usefulness were high. Since every-day users are not aware of database concepts, it is almost impossible for them to design even the basic structure of their self-developed applications with existing low level database-developing prototype applications. Most of the existing prototype applications demand at least some basic knowledge of SQL syntax and/or database logic. Hence, the end-users have either to be trained to use such prototype applications or the prototype applications have to be designed in such a way as to support untrained end-users. In this paper we present an approach based on 'simple-talking' to abstract database terminology and logic from the application development process. In this approach we assist untrained users to progressively design the whole database structure of their applications. The idea behind 'simple-talking' approach is to let the user choose a verb that describes the relationship between entities, and use this verb to form questions for the various database items. Our approach follows the relational paradigm since it is the dominant database type and the most complicated for the end-user to understand. Based on a prototype application we have conducted experiments to evaluate the effectiveness of 'simple-talking' approach and reveal its usefulness for end-user development.