Identifying beacons in Grasshopper: Revealing visual clues to support program comprehension

Program comprehension is a significant challenge for programmers and has been widely studied in the context of textual programming languages. The growing use of visual programming languages, particularly in architecture, introduces comparable comprehension challenges, yet related research remains limited. In response, this study investigates an approach to support the comprehension of visual programming languages. Prior research highlights the effectiveness of beacons in supporting the understanding of textual programs. Building on this concept, a set of hypotheses was developed to test the presence of beacons and their influence on visual program comprehension in Grasshopper. An experiment was conducted with participants of varying experience levels, involving program comprehension and memorisation-recall tasks. Eye-tracking was used to record participants’ gaze behavior during comprehension tasks. The findings provide insights into the potential implications of beacons for learning and teaching methodologies in visual programming languages, with relevance for both practitioners and academics.