WYSIWYG development of data driven web applications

An emerging trend in Social Networking sites and Web portals is the opening up of their APIs to external application developers. For example, the Facebook Platform, Google Gadgets and Yahoo! Widgets allow developers to design their own applications, which can then can be integrated with the platform and shared with other users. However, current APIs are targeted towards developers with programming expertise and database knowledge; they are not accessible to a large class of users who do not have a programming/database background, but would nevertheless like to create new applications. To address this need, we have developed the AppForge system, which provides a WYSIWYG application development platform. Users can graphically specify the components of webpages inside a Web browser, and the corresponding database schema and application logic will be automatically generated on the fly by the system. The WYSIWYG interface gives instantaneous feedback on what users have created and allows them to run, test and continuously refine their applications. AppForge has been used to create prototype versions of a variety of applications such as an event planning system, a recruiting system, an item trading system and an online course management system. We have also conducted a small and preliminary user study to identify and fix some of the usability aspects of AppForge.