Home // International Journal On Advances in Software, volume 10, numbers 3 and 4, 2017 // View article

Programming Spreadsheets in Natural Language: Design of a Natural Language User Interface

Authors:
Alexander Wachtel
Felix Eurich
Walter F. Tichy

Keywords: Natural Language Processing; End-User Development; Natural Language Interfaces; Human Computer Interaction; Programming In Natural Language; Dialog Systems.

Abstract:
In this paper, we present the idea to use the natural language as the user interface for programming tasks. Programming languages assist with repetitive tasks that involve the use of conditionals, loops and statements. However, users can easily describe tasks in their natural language. We aim to develop a Natural Language User Interface that enables users to describe algorithms, including statements, loops, and conditionals. For this, we extend our current spreadsheet system to support control flows. Although far from perfect, this research might lead to fundamental changes in computer use. With natural language, programming would become available to everyone. We believe that it is a reasonable approach for end-user software engineering and will, therefore, overcome the present bottleneck of IT proficients.

Pages: 286 to 295

Copyright: Copyright (c) to authors, 2017. Used with permission.

Publication date: December 31, 2017

Published in: journal

ISSN: 1942-2628