Chosen for a usability test

Yesterday I tried Java Studio Creator 2 for the first time
and found out what it’s like to be the guinea pig in a usability test for it.

How the test went

I sat in a small room with a PC, camera and intercom. Everything I did was recorded and relayed to the control room, where someone occasionally corrected me. The test took about an hour, and I worked through tasks they gave me electronically. One example asked me to imagine I had just joined a company called WebApp and needed to get acquainted with Java Studio Creator by spending ten minutes looking around the IDE.

A key part of the test was trying to think aloud. Apparently I didn’t have much trouble with that. I even threw in cries of delight when something worked, things like “how mighty you are!” Thinking aloud would be important in evaluating the test. With a camera looking over my shoulder and a microphone in the room, I felt like a contestant on a Sun reality show.

After an hour of tasks there was a half-hour interview. I answered prepared questions such as how long startup felt and how responsive the IDE was. Naturally, we talked about Eclipse too. I was amused when they handed me a souvenir T-shirt and said it was “a little controversial.”

On the front it said “Are you still working in the dark?” and showed the phases of a solar eclipse. On the back was a monster sun with NetBeans and a web address. You can tell Eclipse really gets under Sun’s skin…

Java Studio Creator 2

Java Studio Creator 2, a free download in early access, is a classic rapid application development (RAD) IDE for building JSF web applications. If Sun wants to attract developers from other platforms, this is the right way to go. It’s a real challenge to the competition. I mean that, and I’m not advertising it for anyone.

I felt as if I were using a tool made by Microsoft, chiefly because of how easy it is for developers. You can sit someone with minimal Java, JSF or JSP experience in front of the IDE and they can get straight to work. What I liked most was probably the GUI designer, which works like a conventional desktop application designer.

Every page opens in design mode. With one click you can switch to the Java code of its backing bean or to the JSP page with JSF tags. The generated code seemed quite clear. All in all, it’s the kind of RAD tool I’d never seen in Java. It sounds like an ad, but I really was very happy using it.

How it would fare in longer testing or actual deployment is another matter. I’d also mention that the first Java Studio Creator release was apparently a bit rough. If you want to try it, definitely reach for version two.

Comparison with Eclipse

As I mentioned, I was asked to compare it with Eclipse, like it or not. Comparing the two is at least a little lopsided. Java Studio Creator is made specifically for web applications, with an emphasis on JSF and rapid application development. The whole IDE is geared toward that. Eclipse is a general development platform with excellent support for writing your own code, synchronization tools and more.

To compare them fairly you’d have to choose a specific Eclipse plug-in or perspective with JSF support. With Java Studio Creator, developers don’t have to figure out which plug-in to find, where to get it or how to configure it. That’s a huge advantage in my view. You get an IDE designed for the work you’re doing.

Conclusion

I’d recommend giving Java Studio Creator 2 a try. I learned something and came away convinced that Java can have an IDE that competes with the tools where .NET used to have the upper hand. From what I’ve heard behind the scenes, Sun may support the Czech developer community in some way in the future. We’ll see. Let’s hope so and wait to be surprised…