Learning system for computational thinking using appealing user interface with icon-based programming language on smartphones

Computational thinking is one of the most important skills for using computers. Most existing learning systems for computational thinking work only on desktop or laptop computers, although the popularity of smartphones has rapidly been growing. Moreover, most existing programming languages to teach are based on English and most learning systems employ poor user interfaces. Thus, such programming languages and learning systems are not suitable for users who are not familiar with English or who are enchanted to such user interfaces. We propose a gamified learning system using an appealing user interface with a novel icon-based non-verbal programming language. Our system works on smartphones with which many Japanese teenager students are more familiar than PCs. Our system employs an appealing interface that a female student designs for other female students and icons to motivate university students to learn programming through playing. We conducted an experiment with 16 female students from Waseda University to evaluate our system. We confirmed our system motivated the students to learn programming and helped learn computational thinking concepts.