Jonas Grossmann, Functional Genomics Center

In this project, it was investigated if and eventually why some people do have a preference to use a graphical user interface to perform a computer task or to use a computer terminal (command line interface) to perform the very same task. From a data analysis point of view, there are some disadvantages identiable in a mouse-click-and-play solution, which often is compensated by the ease-of-use and the intuitiveness of a graphical user interface. In former courses, it was realized that teaching data analysis in a block course while using the command line is hardly appreciated. Therefore, we also wanted to find out what would be important to value the course if the data analysis is taught by using a command line interface. An exercise was designed where participants were free to choose from the click-stream solution or the command line usage. Afterwards, an online survey was filled to generate structured observations and the results are statistically evaluated. Having previously formulated some hypotheses, why some people prefer a graphical user interface, these hypotheses are statistically tested along with an unbiased optimization approach where all explaining variables are used in the model.