On end-user computing productivity

Two important classes of end-users are: command level users, and end-user programmers. For each of these classes, controlled experiments have been conducted to measure their productivity. For command level users working with databases, the present results indicate that they perform better when the logical data model used is consistent with their own views of reality. For end-user programmers writing programs in high-level procedural programming language, the quality of programs is generally low and no program development method clearly stands out in terms of quality; though writing programs directly without any preplanning is expeditious.