  Creative coding is a rapidly expanding domain for both artistic expression
and computational education. Numerous libraries and IDEs support creative
coding, however there has been little consideration of how the environments
themselves might be designed to serve these twin goals. To investigate this
gap, we implemented and used an experimental editor to teach a sequence of
college and high-school creative coding courses. In the first year, we
conducted a log analysis of student work (n=39) and surveys regarding
prospective features (n=25). These guided our implementation of common
enhancements (e.g. color pickers) as well as uncommon ones (e.g. bidirectional
shape editing). In the second year, we studied the effects of these features
through logging (n=39+) and survey (n=23) studies. Reflecting on the results,
we identify opportunities to improve creativity- and novice-focused IDEs and
highlight tensions in their design -- as in tools that augment artistry or
efficiency but may be perceived as hindering learning.

Human-Computer Interaction