Programming is a hard cognitive activity, especially for novices who also have to struggle
with learning the intricacies of the programming language syntax. We postulate that a well-
designed diagrammatic visual programming language (VPL) to replace or substitute a
textual programming language may help in the learning programming process. Our research
focuses on the suitability of diagrammatic notations for such a VPL. In this paper, we report
results from two experimental studies into diagrammatic notations. The first experiment …